Natively Connect to xBase Data in PHP

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

The DataSource property must be set to the name of the folder that contains the .dbf files. Specify the IncludeFiles property to work with xBase table files having extensions that differ from .dbf. Specify multiple extensions in a comma-separated list.

Establish a Connection

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC xBase 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.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC xBase Source","user","password");
...
odbc_close($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 Invoices WHERE Class = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC xBase Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Invoices WHERE Class = ?");
$success = odbc_execute($query, array('ASSET'));
 

Execute nonparameterized queries with .

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC xBase Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Company, SUM(Total) FROM Invoices GROUP BY ContactName");
 

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC xBase data Source","user","password");
$query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Company, SUM(Total) FROM Invoices GROUP BY ContactName");
while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){
 echo $row["Company"] . "\n";
}

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

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