How to Visualize HCL Domino Data in Python with pandas

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Python Connector for HCL Domino, the pandas & Matplotlib modules, and the SQLAlchemy toolkit, you can build HCL Domino-connected Python applications and scripts for visualizing HCL Domino data. This article shows how to use the pandas, SQLAlchemy, and Matplotlib built-in functions to connect to HCL Domino data, execute queries, and visualize the results.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live HCL Domino data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from HCL Domino, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to HCL Domino and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to HCL Domino Data

Connecting to HCL Domino data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

Prerequisites

The connector requires the Proton component to be installed. Normally, Proton is distributed as part of the AppDev pack. See the HCL documentation for instructions on acquiring and installing Proton or the AppDev pack.

Once the Proton service is installed and running, you will also need to create a user account and download its Internet certificate. This certificate can be used to set the connector certificate connection properties.

Authenticating to Domino

• Server: The name or IP address of the server running Domino with the Proton service.
• Port: The port number that the Proton service is listening on.
• Database: The name of the database file, including the .nsf extension.
• SSLClientCertType: This must match the format of the certificate file. Typically this will be either PEMKEY_FILE for .pem certificates or PFXFILE for .pfx certificates.
• SSLClientCert: The path to the certificate file.
• SSLServerCert: This can be set to (*) if you trust the server. This is usually the case, but if you want to perform SSL validation, you may provide a certificate or thumbprint instead. See the documentation for SSLServerCert for details.

Additional Server Configuration

The connector supports querying Domino views if any are defined. Before views can be queried by the connector they must be registered with the design catalog.

Please refer to the Catalog Administration section of the AppDev pack documentation for details on how to do this.

Follow the procedure below to install the required modules and start accessing HCL Domino through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the pandas & Matplotlib modules and the SQLAlchemy toolkit:

pip install pandas
pip install matplotlib
pip install sqlalchemy

Be sure to import the module with the following:

import pandas
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

Visualize HCL Domino Data in Python

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the create_engine function to create an Engine for working with HCL Domino data.

engine = create_engine("domino:///?Server=https://domino.corp.com&Database=names.nsf&Port=3002&SSLClientCertType=PEMKEY_FILE&SSLClientCert=full_path_of_certificate.pem&SSLServerCert=*")

Execute SQL to HCL Domino

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the resultset in a DataFrame.

df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Name, Address FROM ByName WHERE City = 'Miami'", engine)

Visualize HCL Domino Data

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, use the plot function to build a chart to display the HCL Domino data. The show method displays the chart in a new window.

df.plot(kind="bar", x="Name", y="Address")
plt.show()

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData Python Connector for HCL Domino to start building Python apps and scripts with connectivity to HCL Domino data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import pandas
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sqlalchemy import create_engin

engine = create_engine("domino:///?Server=https://domino.corp.com&Database=names.nsf&Port=3002&SSLClientCertType=PEMKEY_FILE&SSLClientCert=full_path_of_certificate.pem&SSLServerCert=*")
df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Name, Address FROM ByName WHERE City = 'Miami'", engine)

df.plot(kind="bar", x="Name", y="Address")
plt.show()