Connect to Vimeo Data in Ruby

The CData API Driver for ODBC makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live Vimeo data in Ruby. This article shows how to create a simple Ruby app that connects to Vimeo data, executes a query, and displays the results.

Create an ODBC Connection to Vimeo Data

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.

Vimeo is a professional video hosting platform. The Vimeo API uses personal access tokens (bearer tokens) to enable secure access to video metadata, user information, channels, groups, categories, and related resources.

Using API Key Authentication

To authenticate to the Vimeo API, you will need to provide a personal access token. To obtain your access token:

1. Log in to your Vimeo account at https://vimeo.com
2. Navigate to https://developer.vimeo.com/apps
3. Create a new app or select an existing app
4. Under "Personal Access Tokens", click "Generate" to create a new token
5. Select the required scopes: public and private for read access
6. Copy the generated token

After obtaining your access token, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Vimeo personal access token.

Example connection string

Profile=C:\profiles\Vimeo.apip;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_personal_access_token';

Installing Ruby and Necessary Gems

If you do not have Ruby installed, refer to the Ruby installation page. With Ruby installed, you will need to install the ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc gems:

gem install dbi
gem install dbd-odbc
gem install ruby-odbc

Create a Ruby App with Connectivity to Vimeo Data

Create a new Ruby file (for example: APISelect.rb) and open it in a text editor. Copy the following code into your file:

#connect to the DSN
require 'dbi'
cnxn = DBI.connect('DBI:ODBC:CData API Source','','')

#execute a SELECT query and store the result set
resultSet = cnxn.execute("SELECT ,  FROM Videos WHERE UserUri = '/users/12345678'")

#display the names of the columns
resultSet.column_names.each do |name|
  print name, "\t"
end
puts

#display the results
while row = resultSet.fetch do
  (0..resultSet.column_names.size - 1).each do |n|
    print row[n], "\t"
  end
  puts
end
resultSet.finish

#close the connection
cnxn.disconnect if cnxn

With the file completed, you are ready to display your Vimeo data with Ruby. To do so, simply run your file from the command line:

ruby APISelect.rb

Writing SQL-92 queries to Vimeo allows you to quickly and easily incorporate Vimeo data into your own Ruby applications. Download a free trial today!