Automate Stack Exchange Integration Tasks from PowerShell

The CData API Driver for ADO.NET is a standard ADO.NET Provider that make it easy to accomplish data cleansing, normalization, backup, and other integration tasks by enabling real-time access to Stack Exchange.

ADO.NET Provider

The ADO.NET Provider provides a SQL interface for Stack Exchange; this tutorial shows how to use the Provider to retrieve Stack Exchange data.

Once you have acquired the necessary connection properties, accessing Stack Exchange data in PowerShell can be enabled in three steps.

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

Stack Exchange API Profile Settings

Register an application on StackApps to obtain an API Key. The Site property specifies which Stack Exchange site to query (e.g., stackoverflow).

1. Load the provider's assembly:

   [Reflection.Assembly]::LoadFile("C:\Program Files\CData\CData API Driver for ADO.NET\lib\System.Data.CData.API.dll")
       

2. Connect to Stack Exchange:

    
   $conn= New-Object System.Data.CData.API.APIConnection("Profile=C:\profiles\StackExchange.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key;Site=stackoverflow';")
   $conn.Open()
   

3. Instantiate the APIDataAdapter, execute an SQL query, and output the results:

   $sql="SELECT AnswerId, CreationDate from Answers"
   
   $da= New-Object System.Data.CData.API.APIDataAdapter($sql, $conn)
   $dt= New-Object System.Data.DataTable
   $da.Fill($dt)
   
   $dt.Rows | foreach {
   	Write-Host $_.answerid $_.creationdate
   }