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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/athena-odbc-foxpro.rst

⇱ Work with Amazon Athena Data in FoxPro


Work with Amazon Athena Data in FoxPro

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Load Amazon Athena data into a FoxPro database. This article includes full code and a walk-through of the process.

The CData ODBC driver for Amazon Athena enables you to access Amazon Athena data using the ODBC standard. You can use the CData ODBC Driver for Amazon Athena to integrate Amazon Athena data into your FoxPro project. The procedure below provides a walk-through of the included code sample, which saves Amazon Athena data into tables in a FoxPro database.

About Amazon Athena Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Amazon Athena. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Authenticate securely using a variety of methods, including IAM credentials, access keys, and Instance Profiles, catering to diverse security needs and simplifying the authentication process.
  • Streamline their setup and quickly resolve issue with detailed error messaging.
  • Enhance performance and minimize strain on client resources with server-side query execution.

Users frequently integrate Athena with analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Excel for in-depth analytics from their preferred tools.

To learn more about unique Amazon Athena use cases with CData, check out our blog post: https://www.cdata.com/blog/amazon-athena-use-cases.


Getting Started


Connect to Amazon Athena as an ODBC Data Source

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.

NOTE: Set the 'Map To WVarchar' connection property to FALSE (FoxPro uses the ODBC W API and returns the WCHAR for the value type).

Authenticating to Amazon Athena

To authorize Amazon Athena requests, provide the credentials for an administrator account or for an IAM user with custom permissions: Set to the access key Id. Set to the secret access key.

Note: Though you can connect as the AWS account administrator, it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

Obtaining the Access Key

To obtain the credentials for an IAM user, follow the steps below:

  1. Sign into the IAM console.
  2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
  3. To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then select the Security Credentials tab.

To obtain the credentials for your AWS root account, follow the steps below:

  1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
  2. Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
  3. Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.

Authenticating from an EC2 Instance

If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set to true and leave and empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.

Authenticating as an AWS Role

In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the . This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the and of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the and of an AWS root user.

Authenticating with MFA

For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the and connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the (default 3600 seconds).

Connecting to Amazon Athena

In addition to the and properties, specify , and . Set to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.

If is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.

Connect and Transfer

To get started, add the code sample to a new project. You can execute the following command to save all tables without displaying them:

DO C:\Temp\sqldump.prg WITH "CData AmazonAthena Source", "TESTDB", .f.

Below is the process that the program follows:

  1. Create a new FoxPro database.
  2. Open a connection to Amazon Athena data with the line below:

    m.hSQLconnection = SQLCONNECT(m.cODBCDSN)
    
  3. If the connection was successful, you can now retrieve the list of tables using the SQLTABLES function. The code below saves the list of tables in sys_tables.dbf:

    WAIT WINDOW "Fetching tables for data source '" + m.cODBCDSN + "'..." NOWAIT NOCLEAR
    m.nSQLTABLES = SQLTABLES(m.hSQLconnection)
    
    IF lUseDistinctConnections
     WAIT WINDOW "Closing ODBC Connection for data source '" + m.cODBCDSN + "'..." NOWAIT NOCLEAR
     SQLDISCONNECT(m.hSQLconnection)
     m.hSQLconnection = 0 * SQLCONNECT needs to be called again
    ENDIF
    
    IF m.nSQLTABLES > 0
     * create local table containing list of tables in db
     COPY TO (m.cImportData + "sys_tables")
     USE
    
     * convert each table to DBF
     USE (m.cImportData + "sys_tables")
     ALTER TABLE DBF("sys_tables") ;
     ADD COLUMN records i ;
     ADD COLUMN dbfname m
    
  4. Scan over each table, saving it to a DBF file. The function ODBCtoDBF stores the table in a DBF file and then opens a grid if the lBrowse parameter is set to true:
    FUNCTION ODBCtoDBF (cTableName as String, cTableType as String, lBrowse as Logical, lhSQLConnection as Integer)
    
     WAIT WINDOW ;
     "Converting " + m.cTableType + ' "' + m.cTableName + '" to DBF...' ;
     NOWAIT NOCLEAR
    
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
    
     * strip characters incompatible with FoxPro out of the name of the DBF file
     m.cTableAlias		= ""
     m.nTableNameLen		= LEN(m.cTableName)
     m.nTableNameStart	= 1
     
     FOR m.nTableNameStart = 1 TO m.nTableNameLen
     m.cCharacter = SUBSTR(m.cTableName, m.nTableNameStart, 1)	
     IF !ISALPHA(m.cCharacter) .and. (m.nTableNameStart = 1 .or. !ISDIGIT(m.cCharacter))
     m.cTableAlias = m.cTableAlias + "_"
     ELSE
     m.cTableAlias = m.cTableAlias + m.cCharacter
     ENDIF
     ENDFOR
    
     m.cFromTable = m.cTableName
     m.cTempViewAlias	= m.cTableType + "_" + m.cTableAlias
    
     LOCAL loException as Exception
     LOCAL lnResultSets
     
     TRY
     * run query
     m.lnResultSets = SQLEXEC(m.lhSQLConnection, ;
     "SELECT * FROM " + m.cFromTable, ;
     m.cTempViewAlias, ;
     aSQLResult)
    	 
     IF m.lnResultSets#1
     SET STEP ON
     ENDIF
    	
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
    
     CATCH TO m.loException
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
     ? "Error opening " + m.cTempViewAlias + ":"
     ? m.loException.Message
     ? m.loException.Details
     ENDTRY
    
     IF !USED(m.cTempViewAlias)
     RETURN
     ENDIF
    
     * copy records from view cursor to disk
     SELECT * FROM (m.cTempViewAlias) ;
     INTO TABLE (m.cImportData + m.cTableAlias)
    
     IF USED(m.cTableAlias)
    
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
    
     FLUSH	&& flush the buffer to write the data to disk
    
     IF m.lBrowse
     * pop the table up on screen
     SELECT (m.cTableAlias)
     BROWSE NORMAL NOMODIFY NOWAIT
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
     ELSE
     * close on-disk table for now
     USE IN (m.cTableAlias)
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
     ENDIF
     ENDIF
    
     IF USED(m.cTempViewAlias)
     USE IN &cTempViewAlias && close SQL view
     ACTIVATE SCREEN
     ENDIF
    
     WAIT CLEAR
    
    ENDFUNC
    
  5. You can now save tables of Amazon Athena data as DBF files.

Below is the full code, in FoxPro 9 syntax:

PARAMETERS cODBCDSN, cDatabaseName, lBrowseAfterConvert

*	cODBCDSN				The ODBC data source name, used for the name of the folder where the DBF tables are stored.
*	cDatabaseName			The name of the FoxPro database to use. This database is created if it does not exist. The default is DATABASE_NAME.
*								
*	lBrowseAfterConvert		If ".t." display each table with the BROWSE command after importing it. If ".f." close each table before moving on to the next one.

#define		ODBC_DATASOURCE		"DataSourceName"
#define		DATABASE_NAME		"odbcdata"

m.m_tpath = ".\" && root directory for data

ON ERROR
SET SAFETY OFF

IF VARTYPE(m.cODBCDSN)#"C" .or. EMPTY(m.cODBCDSN)
 m.cODBCDSN = ODBC_DATASOURCE
ENDIF
IF VARTYPE(m.cDatabaseName)#"C" .or. EMPTY(m.cDatabaseName)
 m.cDatabaseName = DATABASE_NAME
ENDIF

m.cImportData = m.cODBCDSN + "\"

CLOSE TABLES ALL
CLOSE DATABASES ALL

IF !DIRECTORY(m.cImportData)
	MKDIR (m.cImportData)
ENDIF

CREATE DATABASE (m.cDatabaseName)
CREATE CONNECTION (m.cDatabaseName) DATASOURCE (m.cODBCDSN) DATABASE (m.cDatabaseName)

WAIT WINDOW "Opening ODBC Connection for data source '" + m.cODBCDSN + "'..." NOWAIT NOCLEAR
m.hSQLconnection = SQLCONNECT(m.cODBCDSN)

IF m.hSQLconnection > 0
 * Connection successful; get list of tables
 WAIT WINDOW "Fetching tables for data source '" + m.cODBCDSN + "'..." NOWAIT NOCLEAR
 m.nSQLTABLES = SQLTABLES(m.hSQLconnection)

 IF m.nSQLTABLES > 0
 * Create local table containing list of tables in db
 COPY TO (m.cImportData + "sys_tables")
 USE

 * Convert each table to DBF
 USE (m.cImportData + "sys_tables")
 ALTER TABLE DBF("sys_tables") ;
 ADD COLUMN records	i ;
 ADD COLUMN dbfname	m

 SCAN	
 m.cCurrentTable	= TRIM(sys_tables.table_name)
 m.cCurrentTableType	= TRIM(sys_tables.table_type) && Valid values are "SYSTEMTABLE", "TABLE", and "VIEW".
 IF m.cCurrentTableType = "TABLE" or m.cCurrentTableType = "VIEW"

 ODBCtoDBF(m.cCurrentTable, m.cCurrentTableType, m.lBrowseAfterConvert, m.hSQLConnection)
 ELSE
 ACTIVATE SCREEN
 ? "ERROR:", m.cCurrentTable, "Couldn't open ODBC connection."
 =MESSAGEBOX("couldn't open data source " + m.cODBCDSN + " for table " + m.cCurrentTable + ".")
 ENDIF

 ENDSCAN
 BROWSE NORMAL NOWAIT

 ELSE
 =MESSAGEBOX("No tables found in data source " + m.cODBCDSN + ".")
 SET STEP ON
 ENDIF
 
 SQLDISCONNECT(m.hSQLconnection)
 
ELSE
 =MESSAGEBOX("Could not open data source " + m.cODBCDSN + ".")
 SET STEP ON
ENDIF

FUNCTION ODBCtoDBF (cTableName as String, cTableType as String, lBrowse as Logical, lhSQLConnection as Integer)

 WAIT WINDOW ;
 "Converting " + m.cTableType + ' "' + m.cTableName + '" to DBF...' ;
 NOWAIT NOCLEAR

 ACTIVATE SCREEN

 * Strip characters incompatible with FoxPro out of the name of the DBF file
 m.cTableAlias		= ""
 m.nTableNameLen		= LEN(m.cTableName)
 m.nTableNameStart	= 1
 
 FOR m.nTableNameStart = 1 TO m.nTableNameLen
 m.cCharacter = SUBSTR(m.cTableName, m.nTableNameStart, 1)	
 IF !ISALPHA(m.cCharacter) .and. (m.nTableNameStart = 1 .or. !ISDIGIT(m.cCharacter))
 m.cTableAlias = m.cTableAlias + "_"
 ELSE
 m.cTableAlias = m.cTableAlias + m.cCharacter
 ENDIF
 ENDFOR

 m.cFromTable = m.cTableName
 m.cTempViewAlias	= m.cTableType + "_" + m.cTableAlias

 LOCAL loException as Exception
 LOCAL lnResultSets
 
 TRY
 * Run query
 m.lnResultSets = SQLEXEC(m.lhSQLConnection, ;
 "SELECT * FROM " + m.cFromTable, ;
 m.cTempViewAlias, ;
 aSQLResult)
	 
 IF m.lnResultSets#1
 SET STEP ON
 ENDIF
	
 ACTIVATE SCREEN

 CATCH TO m.loException
 ACTIVATE SCREEN
 ? "Error opening " + m.cTempViewAlias + ":"
 ? m.loException.Message
 ? m.loException.Details
 ENDTRY

 IF !USED(m.cTempViewAlias)
 RETURN
 ENDIF

 * Copy records from view cursor to disk
 SELECT * FROM (m.cTempViewAlias) ;
 INTO TABLE (m.cImportData + m.cTableAlias)

 IF USED(m.cTableAlias)

 ACTIVATE SCREEN

 FLUSH	&& Flush the buffer to write the data to disk

 IF m.lBrowse
 * Display the table on screen
 SELECT (m.cTableAlias)
 BROWSE NORMAL NOMODIFY NOWAIT
 ACTIVATE SCREEN
 ELSE
 * Close on-disk table
 USE IN (m.cTableAlias)
 ACTIVATE SCREEN
 ENDIF
 ENDIF

 IF USED(m.cTempViewAlias)
 USE IN &cTempViewAlias && Close SQL view
 ACTIVATE SCREEN
 ENDIF

 WAIT CLEAR

ENDFUNC

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Amazon Athena ODBC Driver to get started:

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Learn more:

👁 Amazon Athena Icon
Amazon Athena ODBC Driver

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

Access Amazon Athena interactive query services data like you would a database, through a standard ODBC Driver interface.