UniDAC Using BigCommerce data access provider with UniDAC in Delphi

This article provides a brief overview of the BigCommerce cloud provider for UniDAC used to access BigCommerce from Delphi and Lazarus. You will find the description of some useful features and how to get started quickly.

• Overview
• Compatibility
• Requirements
• Deployment
• Connecting to BigCommerce
• Bigcommerce-specific options
  • TUniConnection
  • Proxy connection options
  • TUniSQL
  • TUniQuery, TUniTable, TUniStoredProc
  • TUniScript
  • TUniLoader
  • TUniDump

Overview

Main features of BigCommerce cloud provider are:

• Direct access to BigCommerce cloud databases via HTTPS
• Extended SQL Syntax

The full list of Cloud provider features can be found on the UniDAC features page.

Both Professional and Standard Editions of UniDAC include the BigCommerce cloud provider.

Compatibility

BigCommerce provider supports BigCommerce data types and API.

Requirements

Applications that use the BigCommerce cloud provider require Devart ODBC Driver for BigCommerce to be installed on the client computer. The driver is sold and distributed separately from UniDAC.

Deployment

When an application was built without runtime packages (Link with runtime packages set to False in Project Options), you do not need to deploy any BPL files with it. For more information, see Deployment.
Note that UniDAC Trial requires deployment of additional BPL files regardless of Link with runtime packages.

Connecting to BigCommerce

To connect to BigCommerce using legacy authentication and Devart ODBC Driver, you should configure the driver and set up a DSN. In the TUniConnection component, specify the following parameters:

• Server
• Username
• AuthenticationToken

For more information on how to obtain BigCommerce AuthenticationToken, see the article.

To connect to BigCommerce using the OAuth authentication and Devart ODBC Driver, you should configure the driver and set up a DSN. In the TUniConnection component, specify the following parameters:

• Authentication
• StoreId
• ClientId
• AccessToken

For more information on how to obtain BigCommerce AccessToken, ClientId and StoreId, see the article.

BigCommerce-specific options

Though UniDAC is components that provide a unified interface to work with various cloud services, it also lets you tune behaviour for each cloud individually. For thin setup of a certain cloud, UniDAC provides specific options. These options can be applied to such components as TUniConnection, TUniQuery, TUniTable, TUniStoredProc, TUniSQL, TUniScript via their SpecificOptions property. SpecificOptions is a sting list.

Below you will find the description of allowed options grouped by components.

TUniConnection

Option name	Description
AccessToken	Used to supply a unique Access Token for your app.
Authentication	Used to specify the required BigCommerce authentication. The available values are: Basic OAuth The default value is Basic.
AuthenticationToken	Used to supply an API key to login to BigCommerce.
ClientId	Used to supply a unique Client ID for your app.
ConnectionTimeout	The time to wait for a connection to open before raising an exception.
StoreId	Used to identify the store you are logging into.
UseUnicode	Enables or disables Unicode support. Affects character data fetched from the server. When set to True, all character data is stored as WideStrings, and TStringField is replaced by TWideStringField.
UTCDates	Use the UTCDates option to return the datetime values from the data source as UTC values.

Proxy connection options

Option name	Description
ProxyPassword	If Proxy User authorization is used, specify Proxy user password in this option.
ProxyPort	Specify the Proxy port here. You can learn Proxy Port in the same way as described above for the host.
ProxyServer	If you are using Proxy for connection to your network, specify the Proxy server address in this option. To learn your Proxy server address, open Control Panel > Internet Options > Connections > LAN settings.
ProxyUser	If Proxy User authorization is used, specify Proxy user name (ID) in this option.

TUniSQL

Option name	Description
CommandTimeout	The time to wait for a statement to be executed.

TUniQuery, TUniTable, TUniStoredProc

Option name	Description
CommandTimeout	The time to wait for a statement to be executed.
ExtendedFieldsInfo	If True, an additional query is performed to get information about the returned fields and tables they belong to. The default value is False.
FetchAll	If True, all records of a query are requested from database server when the dataset is being opened. If False, records are retrieved when a data-aware component or a program requests it. The default value is False.
FieldsAsString	If set to True, all non-BLOB fields are handled as strings. The default value is False.
UnknownAsString	If set to True, all BigCommerce data types that are fetched as text and don't have the size limit, are mapped to TStringField with the default size 8192 bytes. If False (default value), such types are mapped to TMemoField. The TEXT data type is always mapped to TMemoField regardless of the value of this option.

TUniScript

The TUniScript component has no BigCommerce-specific options.

TUniLoader

The TUniLoader component has no BigCommerce-specific options.

TUniDump

The TUniDump component has no BigCommerce-specific options.