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The Twitter ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from Twitter, directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

With the Twitter ODBC Driver accessing live Tweets, Followers, Messages, Searches, etc. is as easy as querying a database.

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Create Informatica Mappings From/To an ODBC Data Source for Twitter


Create an ODBC connection to Twitter in Informatica and browse and transfer Twitter data.

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData ODBC Driver for Twitter, you are gaining access to a driver based on industry-proven standards that integrates seamlessly with Informatica's powerful data transportation and manipulation features. This tutorial shows how to transfer and browse Twitter data in Informatica PowerCenter.

Connect to Twitter as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Twitter follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

All tables require authentication. You can connect using your User and Password or OAuth. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can register an app to obtain your own.

If you intend to communicate with Twitter only as the currently authenticated user, then you can obtain the OAuthAccessToken and OAuthAccessTokenSecret directly by registering an app.

See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

Windows

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.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Twitter in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData Twitter Source] Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Twitter Description = My Description

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Create a Linked Table to Tweets Data

Follow the steps below to create a linked table, which enables you to access live Tweets data.

Create the ODBC Connection

Follow the steps below to connect to Twitter in Informatica PowerCenter:

  1. In the Informatica Developer tool connect to your repository and create a project.
  2. In the Connection Explorer pane, right-click and click Create a Connection.
  3. In the New Database Connection wizard that is displayed, enter a name and Id for the connection and in the Type menu select ODBC.
  4. In the Connection String property, enter the DSN.

NOTE: If you are working in a Linux operating system, set the Driver Manager for Linux property to unixODBC 2.3.x.

Create the Twitter Data Object

After you have created an ODBC connection to Twitter, you can now access Twitter entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to add Tweets entities to your project.

  1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
  2. In the wizard that is displayed, select the Relational Data Object option.
  3. Click the Browse button next to the Connection box and select the ODBC connection you created in the previous step.
  4. Select the option to create a data object from an existing resource and click the Browse button next to the Resource box.
  5. In the dialog that is displayed, clear the Show Default Schema Only option and expand the node for the ODBC connection. Select the entity that you want.

You can now browse the table in the Data Viewer: Right-click the node for the table and then click Open. On the Data Viewer view, click Run.

Create the Mapping

Follow the steps below to add the Twitter source to a mapping:

  1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Mapping.
  2. Expand the node for the Twitter connection and then drag the data object for the table onto the editor.
  3. In the dialog that appears, select the Read option.

Follow the steps below to map Twitter columns to a flat file:

  1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
  2. Select Flat File Data Object -> Create as Empty -> Fixed Width.
  3. In the properties for the Twitter object, select the rows you want, right-click, and then click copy. Paste the rows into the flat file properties.
  4. Drag the flat file data object onto the mapping. In the dialog that appears, select the Write option.
  5. Click and drag to connect columns.

To transfer Twitter data, right-click in the workspace and then click Run Mapping.