Write a Simple Go Application to work with Microsoft Dataverse Data on Linux

Use CData ODBC drivers and unixODBC to create a simple Go app with live connectivity to Microsoft Dataverse data.

Go is an open source programming language that enables you to easily build software on Linux/UNIX machines. When Go is paired with the ODBC Driver for Microsoft Dataverse and unixODBC you are able write applications with connectivity to live Microsoft Dataverse data. This article will walk you through the process of installing the ODBC Driver for Microsoft Dataverse, configuring a connection using the unixODBC Driver Manager, and creating a simple Go application to work with Microsoft Dataverse data.

Using the CData ODBC Drivers on a Unix/Linux Machine

The CData ODBC Drivers are supported in various Red Hat-based and Debian-based systems, including Ubuntu, Debian, RHEL, CentOS, and Fedora. There are also several libraries and packages that are required, many of which may be installed by default, depending on your system. For more information on the supported versions of Linux operating systems and the required libraries, please refer to the "Getting Started" section in help documentation (installed and found online).

About Microsoft Dataverse Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Microsoft Dataverse (formerly the Common Data Service). Customers use CData connectivity to:

Access both Dataverse Entities and Dataverse system tables to work with exactly the data they need.
Authenticate securely with Microsoft Dataverse in a variety of ways, including Azure Active Directory, Azure Managed Service Identity credentials, and Azure Service Principal using either a client secret or a certificate.
Use SQL stored procedures to manage Microsoft Dataverse entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

CData customers use our Dataverse connectivity solutions for a variety of reasons, whether they're looking to replicate their data into a data warehouse (alongside other data sources)or analyze live Dataverse data from their preferred data tools inside the Microsoft ecosystem (Power BI, Excel, etc.) or with external tools (Tableau, Looker, etc.).

Getting Started

Installing the Driver Manager

Before installing the driver, you need to be sure that your system has a driver manager. For this article, you will use unixODBC, a free and open source ODBC driver manager that is widely supported.

For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, you can install unixODBC with the APT package manager:


apt-get install unixodbc unixodbc-dev

For systems based on Red Hat Linux, you can install unixODBC with yum or dnf:


yum install unixODBC unixODBC-devel

The unixODBC driver manager reads information about drivers from an odbcinst.ini file and about data sources from an odbc.ini file. You can determine the location of the configuration files on your system by entering the following command into a terminal:


odbcinst -j

NOTE: You may need to install odbcinst. Use the following command in a terminal:


apt install odbcinst

The output of the command will display the locations of the configuration files for ODBC data sources and registered ODBC drivers. User data sources can only be accessed by the user account whose home folder the odbc.ini is located in. System data sources can be accessed by all users. Below is an example of the output of this command:


DRIVERS............: /etc/odbcinst.ini
SYSTEM DATA SOURCES: /etc/odbc.ini
FILE DATA SOURCES..: /etc/ODBCDataSources
USER DATA SOURCES..: /home/myuser/.odbc.ini
SQLULEN Size.......: 8
SQLLEN Size........: 8
SQLSETPOSIROW Size.: 8

Installing the Driver

You can download the driver in standard package formats: the Debian .deb package format or the .rpm file format. Once you have downloaded the file, you can install the driver from the terminal.

The driver installer registers the driver with unixODBC and creates a system DSN, which can be used later in any tools or applications that support ODBC connectivity.

For Debian-based systems like Ubuntu, run the following command with sudo or as root: dpkg -i /path/to/package.deb

For systems that support .rpms, run the following command with sudo or as root: rpm -i /path/to/package.rpm

Once the driver is installed, you can list the registered drivers and defined data sources using the unixODBC driver manager:

List the Registered Driver(s)


odbcinst -q -d
CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Dataverse
...

List the Defined Data Source(s)


odbcinst -q -s
CData CDS Source
...

To use the CData ODBC Driver for Microsoft Dataverse with unixODBC, you need to ensure that the driver is configured to use UTF-16. To do so, edit the INI file for the driver (cdata.odbc.cds.ini), which can be found in the lib folder in the installation location (typically /opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-cds), as follows:

cdata.odbc.cds.ini


...

[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-16

Modifying the DSN

When the driver is installed, a system DSN should be predefined. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties. Additionally, you can create user-specific DSNs that will not require root access to modify in $HOME/.odbc.ini.

You can connect without setting any connection properties for your user credentials. Below are the minimum connection properties required to connect.

InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
OrganizationUrl: Set this to the organization URL you are connecting to, such as https://myorganization.crm.dynamics.com.
Tenant (optional): Set this if you wish to authenticate to a different tenant than your default. This is required to work with an organization not on your default Tenant.

When you connect the Common Data Service OAuth endpoint opens in your default browser. Log in and grant permissions. The OAuth process completes automatically.

/etc/odbc.ini or $HOME/.odbc.ini


[CData CDS Source]
Driver = /opt/cdata/cdata-odbc-driver-for-cds/lib/libcdsodbc.x64.so
Description = My Description
OrganizationUrl = https://myaccount.crm.dynamics.com/

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

Creating a Simple Go App for Microsoft Dataverse Data

With the Driver Manager installed and the DSN configured, you are ready to create a simple Go application to work with your Microsoft Dataverse data. To start, install a Go driver for ODBC databases. While there are several options available, this article will use the odbc driver found at https://github.com/alexbrainman/odbc.

Installing ODBC on Linux

There are a series of steps required to install the ODBC driver for Go.

Create the $HOME/golang/go path (if it does not exist) by entering the following commands in a terminal: mkdir /root/golang mkdir /root/golang/go
Define the GOPATH environment variable: export GOPATH=$HOME/golang/go
Create a module inside the new Go directory: cd $GOPATH go mod init myproject
Install the Go driver for ODBC databases:
go get http://github.com/alexbrainman/odbc

Now you are ready to create and execute a simple Go application.

Sample Go Application

The sample application issues a simple SQL SELECT query for Microsoft Dataverse data and displays the results. Create the directory $GOPATH/src/cdata-odbc-dataverse and create a new Go source file, copying the source code from below.

cdata-odbc-dataverse.go


package main

import (
  _ "github.com/alexbrainman/odbc"
  "database/sql"
  "log"
  "fmt"
)

func main() {
  db, err := sql.Open("odbc",
    "DSN=CData CDS Source")
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }

  var (
    accountid string
    name string
  )

  rows, err := db.Query("SELECT AccountId, Name FROM Accounts WHERE Name = ?", "MyAccount")
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }
  defer rows.Close()
  for rows.Next() {
    err := rows.Scan(&accountid, &name)
    if err != nil {
      log.Fatal(err)
    }
    fmt.Println(accountid, name)
  }
  err = rows.Err()
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatal(err)
  }

  defer db.Close()
}

In the terminal, navigate to the Go application directory and build the application:


go build

After the application builds, you will be able to execute the application, displaying your Microsoft Dataverse data:


./cdata-odbc-dataverse

At this point, you have a simple Go application for working with Microsoft Dataverse data. From here, you can easily expand the application, adding deeper read/write functionality through familiar SQL queries.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Microsoft Dataverse ODBC Driver to get started:

Download Now

Learn more:

Microsoft Dataverse ODBC Driver

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

Access Microsoft Dataverse like you would a database - access entities through a standard ODBC Driver interface.