Connect to BigCommerce Data from PowerBuilder via ADO.NET

This article demonstrates using the CData ADO.NET Provider for BigCommerce in PowerBuilder, showcasing the ease of use and compatibility of these standards-based controls across various platforms and development technologies that support Microsoft .NET, including Appeon PowerBuilder.

This article shows how to create a basic PowerBuilder application that uses the CData ADO.NET Provider for BigCommerce to perform reads and writes.

1. In a new WPF Window Application solution, add all the Visual Controls needed for the connection properties. Below is a typical connection string:

   OAuthClientId=YourClientId; OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret; StoreId='YourStoreID'; CallbackURL='http://localhost:33333';InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

   BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

   Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

   1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
   2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
   3. Click Create API Account.
   4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
   5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
   6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
   7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.
2. Add the DataGrid control from the .NET controls.
3. Configure the columns of the DataGrid control. Below are several columns from the Account table:

   <DataGrid AutoGenerateColumns="False" Margin="13,249,12,14" Name="datagrid1" TabIndex="70" ItemsSource="{Binding}">
   <DataGrid.Columns>
    <DataGridTextColumn x:Name="idColumn" Binding="{Binding Path=Id}" Header="Id" Width="SizeToHeader" />
    <DataGridTextColumn x:Name="nameColumn" Binding="{Binding Path=FirstName}" Header="FirstName" Width="SizeToHeader" />
   		...
   	</DataGrid.Columns>
   </DataGrid>
   

4. Add a reference to the CData ADO.NET Provider for BigCommerce assembly.

Connect the DataGrid

Once the visual elements have been configured, you can use standard ADO.NET objects like Connection, Command, and DataAdapter to populate a DataTable with the results of an SQL query:

System.Data.CData.BigCommerce.BigCommerceConnection conn 
conn = create System.Data.CData.BigCommerce.BigCommerceConnection(connectionString)

System.Data.CData.BigCommerce.BigCommerceCommand comm 
comm = create System.Data.CData.BigCommerce.BigCommerceCommand(command, conn)

System.Data.DataTable table
table = create System.Data.DataTable

System.Data.CData.BigCommerce.BigCommerceDataAdapter dataAdapter
dataAdapter = create System.Data.CData.BigCommerce.BigCommerceDataAdapter(comm)
dataAdapter.Fill(table)	
datagrid1.ItemsSource=table.DefaultView

The code above can be used to bind data from the specified query to the DataGrid.