Natively Connect to JotForm Data in PHP

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

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the JotForm Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\JotForm.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for JotForm (see below).

JotForm API Profile Settings

Find your JotForm API Key in order to authenticate. To obtain an API Key, go to 'My Account' > 'API Section' > 'Create a New API Key'. Once you've created your new API Key, you can set it in the ProfileSettings connection property.

Custom Enterprise API Domains

Enterprise customers of JotForm are given custom API domains to connect to, rather than the default 'api.jotform.com' domain. If you are an enterprise JotForm customer, then set Domain to you custom API hostname, such as 'your-domain.com' or 'subdomain.jotform.com', inside the ProfileSettings connection property. Conversely, if you do not have a custom domain and still need to connect to 'api.jotform.com', then leave Domain undefined and set only APIKey.

Establish a Connection

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API 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.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($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 Forms WHERE Status = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Forms WHERE Status = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('ENABLED'));
 

Execute nonparameterized queries with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC API Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Title FROM Forms WHERE Status = 'ENABLED'");
 

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC JotForm data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Id, Title FROM Forms WHERE Status = 'ENABLED'");
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 JotForm data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Forms WHERE Status = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('ENABLED'));
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 JotForm-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.