Natively Connect to Google Contacts Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for Google Contacts into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build Google Contacts-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to Google Contacts data, execute queries, and output the results.

Configure a DSN

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.

You can connect to Google APIs on behalf of individual users or on behalf of a domain. Google uses the OAuth authentication standard. See the "Getting Started" section of the help documentation for a guide.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Google Contacts by calling the or methods. To close connections, use or .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC GoogleContacts Source","user","password");

Connections opened with are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the method are still open after the script ends. This enables other scripts to share that connection when they connect with the same credentials. By sharing connections among your scripts, you can save system resources, and queries execute faster.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC GoogleContacts Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Friends WHERE SearchTerms = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC GoogleContacts Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Friends WHERE SearchTerms = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Durham'));
 

Execute nonparameterized queries with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC GoogleContacts Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Summary, StartDateTime FROM Friends");
 

Process Results

Access a row in the result set as an array with the function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Google Contacts data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Summary, StartDateTime FROM Friends");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Summary"] . "\n";
}

Display the result set in an HTML table with the function.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Google Contacts data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Friends WHERE SearchTerms = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('Durham'));
if($success)
 odbc_result_all($query);

More Example Queries

You will find complete information on the driver's supported SQL in the help documentation. The code examples above are Google Contacts-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.