This section provides a simple scenario that shows how to write the basic data access code needed to pipe Airtable data into your application. The code example chains FireDAC components like TFDConnection and TFDQuery and executes a SELECT query with simple GUI components.

Setting Connection Properties

To begin accessing Airtable through a TFDConnection component and then other FireDAC components, create a connection and link the FireDAC components:

1. Initialize the Airtable component: Add a TFDPhysAirtableDriverLink object to your project.
2. Link with a TFDConnection object: Set the DriverName property of the TFDConnection object to the Driver Id of the component, CDataAirtable.
3. Define connection properties through the TFDPhysAirtableConnectionDefParams object. This object enables you to use Code Insight and compiler syntax checking.

FDConnection1.Name := 'SQLTest';
FDConnection1.DriverName := 'CDataAirtable';
with FDConnection1.Params as TFDPhysCDataAirtableConnectionDefParams do begin
    ...
end;

You can also set connection properties through the FDManager function. See Connection Definitions for other ways to define connections.

Execute SQL Queries to Airtable

You can use the TFDQuery object to execute any SQL statement.

1. Set the Connection property of a TFDQuery object to a TFDConnection instance.

2. Set the Connected property of the TFDConnection object to True to open the connection.
3. Call the Open method to execute SELECT queries with a TFDQuery object.

FDQuery1.Connection := FDConnection1;
FDConnection1.Connected := true;
FDQuery1.Active := true;
FDQuery1.Open('SELECT * FROM SampleTable_1 WHERE Column2 = ''Bob''');

To execute data manipulation statements, use the ExecSQL method -- both TFDConnection and TFDQuery have these methods, with slightly different functionality. See Manipulating Data for examples and more information.

See Querying Data for more information on selecting Airtable data with the TFDQuery class.