Natively Connect to SerpApi Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for SerpApi into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build SerpApi-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to SerpApi data, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the SerpAPI Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\SerpAPI.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for SerpAPI (see below).

SerpAPI API Profile Settings

SerpAPI uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

1. Sign in to your SerpAPI account at https://serpapi.com
2. Navigate to the API Key page at https://serpapi.com/manage-api-key
3. Copy your private API key

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

• APIKey: Set this to your SerpAPI private API key.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to SerpApi by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('mechanical keyboard'));
  

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Asin, Title FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = 'mechanical keyboard'");
  

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the odbc_fetch_array function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC SerpApi data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Asin, Title FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = 'mechanical keyboard'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Asin"] . "\n";
}

Display the result set in an HTML table with the odbc_result_all function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC SerpApi data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('mechanical keyboard'));
if($success)
  odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are SerpApi-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.