LINQ to Reply.io Data

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the Reply.io via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for Reply.io. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData Reply.io Data Source".

4. Enter your data source connection information.

   The Reply.io API uses API Key authentication via the x-api-key request header.

   Using API Key Authentication

   Your Reply.io API key is required to create a connection. To obtain your API key:

   1. Log into your Reply.io account.
   2. Click your profile icon and select Settings.
   3. Navigate to the API section.
   4. Copy your API Key.

   After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   • APIKey: Set this to your Reply.io API key.
   • UserEmail (optional): Set this to the email address of the Reply.io user on whose behalf requests are made.

   Example connection string:

   Profile=C:\profiles\ReplyIO.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';
   

   Below is a typical connection string:

   Profile=C:\profiles\ReplyIO.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';

👁 Required connection properties for the data source. (QuickBooks is shown.)

5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting APIEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select commands. For example:

APIEntities context = new APIEntities();

var billinginfoQuery = from billinginfo in context.BillingInfo
 select billinginfo;

foreach (var result in billinginfoQuery) {
 Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.Id, result.);
}

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.