Natively Connect to Simplesat Data in PHP

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
The CData ODBC driver for Simplesat enables you to create PHP applications with connectivity to Simplesat data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Simplesat into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Simplesat-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Simplesat 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.

Using API Key Authentication

Simplesat uses API Key authentication. To obtain your API key, log in to your Simplesat account and navigate to Workspace Settings > API. Copy the API key value for use in the connection string.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
  • APIKey: Set this to your Simplesat API key obtained from workspace settings.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Simplesat 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 Surveys WHERE  = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

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

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT ,  FROM Surveys WHERE  = ''");
  

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Simplesat data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT ,  FROM Surveys WHERE  = ''");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row[""] . "\n";
}

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Simplesat data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Surveys WHERE  = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array(''));
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 Simplesat-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Simplesat with the API Driver

Connect to Simplesat