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Query Snowflake Data Using the OData SDK for PHP
You can use the API Server and the OData PHP SDK to easily consume Snowflake entities in PHP by modeling them as objects.
The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Snowflake, exposes Snowflake data (or data from any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) as Web services. You can follow the procedure below to work with Snowflake data as PHP objects.
About Snowflake Data Integration
CData simplifies access and integration of live Snowflake data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:
- Reads and write Snowflake data quickly and efficiently.
- Dynamically obtain metadata for the specified Warehouse, Database, and Schema.
- Authenticate in a variety of ways, including OAuth, OKTA, Azure AD, Azure Managed Service Identity, PingFederate, private key, and more.
Many CData users use CData solutions to access Snowflake from their preferred tools and applications, and replicate data from their disparate systems into Snowflake for comprehensive warehousing and analytics.
For more information on integrating Snowflake with CData solutions, refer to our blog: https://www.cdata.com/blog/snowflake-integrations.
Getting Started
Set Up the API Server
Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Snowflake OData services:
Deploy
The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.
The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.
Connect to Snowflake
After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Snowflake, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Snowflake by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.
To connect to Snowflake:
- Set User and Password to your Snowflake credentials and set the AuthScheme property to PASSWORD or OKTA.
- Set URL to the URL of the Snowflake instance (i.e.: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com).
- Set Warehouse to the Snowflake warehouse.
- (Optional) Set Account to your Snowflake account if your URL does not conform to the format above.
- (Optional) Set Database and Schema to restrict the tables and views exposed.
See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.
You can then choose the Snowflake entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.
Additionally, configure the API Server for compatibility with the OData SDK for PHP: Click Server -> Settings and in the OData section set Default Version to 2.0.
Authorize API Server Users
After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; by default, only connections from the local machine are allowed.
For simplicity, we will authenticate to the API Server by setting the authtoken in the URL. This is not enabled by default; you will need to add the following lines to the API Server configuration file, settings.cfg.
[Application]
AllowAuthTokenInUrl = true
The settings.cfg file is located in the data directory. In the .NET edition, the data directory is the app_data folder under the www folder. In the Java edition, the data directory's location depends on the operation system:
- Windows: C:\ProgramData\CData\Snowflake\
- Unix or Mac OS X: ~/cdata/Snowflake/
Work with Snowflake Entities as PHP Objects
Follow the steps below to use the ODataPHP SDK to create a proxy class that will connect to the Web services exposed by the API Server.
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Pass the URL to a command like the one below:
php C:\PHPLib\ODataphp\PHPDataSvcUtil.php /uri=https://your-server:8032/api.rsc/@your-authtoken/ /out=C:\PHPLib\ODataphp\SnowflakeEntities.phpThe preceding command defines classes from the metadata returned in the response from the OData endpoint, then outputs the class definitions to the specified folder.
Both the API Server and the OData SDK for PHP support forms and Windows authentication. The API Server uses authtokens to authenticate users authorized to access the OData endpoint. You can supply authtokens in HTTP Basic authentication or append them to the OData URL.
You can configure authorized users in the Settings -> Users section of the API Server administration console.
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You can now start accessing Snowflake data using an object-oriented interface in PHP. The code below creates a record of the Products table and then retrieves the live data, showing the newly created record.
require_once 'SnowflakeEntities.php'; try{ $svc = new CData(); $products = new Products(); $products->Id = '1'; $svc->AddToProducts($products); $svc->SetSaveChangesOptions(SaveChangesOptions::None); $svc->SaveChanges(); $response = $svc->products()->Execute(); foreach($response->Result as $products) echo $products->Id.""; } catch (Exception $e) { //catch errors from the API Server echo $e->getError(), "\n"; }
