Connect to Twitter Ads Data in Ruby

The CData ODBC Driver for Twitter Ads makes it easy to integrate connectivity to live Twitter Ads data in Ruby. This article shows how to create a simple Ruby app that connects to Twitter Ads data, executes a query, and displays the results.

Create an ODBC Connection to Twitter Ads Data

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.

All tables require authentication. You must use OAuth to authenticate with Twitter. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Twitter using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the Help documentation.

Installing Ruby and Necessary Gems

If you do not have Ruby installed, refer to the Ruby installation page. With Ruby installed, you will need to install the ruby-dbi, dbd-odbc, and ruby-odbc gems:

gem install dbi
gem install dbd-odbc
gem install ruby-odbc

Create a Ruby App with Connectivity to Twitter Ads Data

Create a new Ruby file (for example: TwitterAdsSelect.rb) and open it in a text editor. Copy the following code into your file:

#connect to the DSN
require 'dbi'
cnxn = DBI.connect('DBI:ODBC:CData TwitterAds Source','','')

#execute a SELECT query and store the result set
resultSet = cnxn.execute("SELECT EntityId, Entity FROM AdStats WHERE Entity = 'ORGANIC_TWEET'")

#display the names of the columns
resultSet.column_names.each do |name|
 print name, "\t"
end
puts

#display the results
while row = resultSet.fetch do
 (0..resultSet.column_names.size - 1).each do |n|
 print row[n], "\t"
 end
 puts
end
resultSet.finish

#close the connection
cnxn.disconnect if cnxn

With the file completed, you are ready to display your Twitter Ads data with Ruby. To do so, simply run your file from the command line:

ruby TwitterAdsSelect.rb

Writing SQL-92 queries to Twitter Ads allows you to quickly and easily incorporate Twitter Ads data into your own Ruby applications. Download a free trial today!