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The Xero ODBC Driver is a powerful tool that allows you to connect with live data from Xero accounting software , directly from any applications that support ODBC connectivity.

Access Xero data like you would a database - read, write, and update Xero Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts, etc. through a standard ODBC Driver interface.

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Natively Connect to Xero Data in PHP


The CData ODBC driver for Xero enables you to create PHP applications with connectivity to Xero data. Leverage the native support for ODBC in PHP.

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

To connect, set the Schema connection property in addition to any authentication values. Xero offers authentication for private applications, public applications, and partner applications. You will need to set the XeroAppAuthentication property to PUBLIC, PRIVATE, or PARTNER, depending on the type of application configured. To connect from a private application, you will additionally need to set the OAuthAccessToken, OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, CertificateStoreType, CertificateStore, and CertificateStorePassword.

To connect from a public or partner application, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL, or you can register an app to obtain your own OAuth values.

See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide to authenticating to Xero.

Establish a Connection

Open the connection to Xero by calling the odbc_connect or odbc_pconnect methods. To close connections, use odbc_close or odbc_close_all.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Xero Source","user","password");

Connections opened with odbc_connect are closed when the script ends. Connections opened with the odbc_pconnect 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.

$conn = odbc_pconnect("CData ODBC Xero Source","user","password"); ... odbc_close($conn); //persistent connection must be closed explicitly

Create Prepared Statements

Create prepared statements and parameterized queries with the odbc_prepare function.

$query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Items WHERE Name = ?");

Execute Queries

Execute prepared statements with odbc_execute.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Xero Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Items WHERE Name = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Golf balls - white single'));

Execute nonparameterized queries with odbc_exec.

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Xero Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Name, SUM(QuantityOnHand) FROM Items GROUP BY Name");

Process Results

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Xero data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_exec($conn, "SELECT Name, SUM(QuantityOnHand) FROM Items GROUP BY Name"); while($row = odbc_fetch_array($query)){ echo $row["Name"] . "\n"; }

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

$conn = odbc_connect("CData ODBC Xero data Source","user","password"); $query = odbc_prepare($conn, "SELECT * FROM Items WHERE Name = ?"); $success = odbc_execute($query, array('Golf balls - white single')); 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 Xero-specific adaptations of the PHP community documentation for all ODBC functions.