LINQ to ZenRows Data

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the ZenRows via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for ZenRows. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData ZenRows Data Source".

4. Enter your data source connection information.

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

   ZenRows API Profile Settings

   To use the ZenRows API, you need to obtain an API key from your ZenRows account. Navigate to the ZenRows dashboard at app.zenrows.com and copy your API key from the account settings.

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

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   • APIKey: Set this to your ZenRows API key.

   Below is a typical connection string:

   Profile=C:\profiles\ZenRows.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';


5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting APIEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select commands. For example:

APIEntities context = new APIEntities();

var amazondiscoveryQuery = from amazondiscovery in context.AmazonDiscovery
  select amazondiscovery;

foreach (var result in amazondiscoveryQuery) {
  Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.ProductId);
}

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.