Natively Connect to IBM Informix Data in PHP

Drop the CData ODBC Driver for IBM Informix into your LAMP or WAMP stack to build IBM Informix-connected Web applications. This article shows how to use PHP's ODBC built-in functions to connect to IBM Informix 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.

Set the following properties to connect to IBM Informix

• Server: Set this to the name of the server running IBM Informix.
• Port: Set this to the port the IBM Informix server is listening on.
• Database: Set this to the name of the IBM Informix database.
• User: Set this to the username of a user allowed to access the database.
• Password: Set this to the password of a user allowed to access the database.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to IBM Informix by calling the or methods. To close connections, use or .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Informix 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.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC Informix Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($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 Books WHERE Category = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Informix Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Books WHERE Category = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('US'));
 

Execute nonparameterized queries with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Informix Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Price FROM Books WHERE Category = 'US'");
 

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC IBM Informix data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Price FROM Books WHERE Category = 'US'");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Id"] . "\n";
}

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC IBM Informix data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Books WHERE Category = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('US'));
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 IBM Informix-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.