Query BigCommerce Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce, you can access live BigCommerce data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live BigCommerce data.

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

Connecting to BigCommerce Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
3. Click Create API Account.
4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to BigCommerce through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying BigCommerce from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live BigCommerce data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Customers table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryBigCommerce() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData BigCommerce Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT FirstName, LastName FROM Customers');
    console.log(data);
}

queryBigCommerce();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for BigCommerce and start working with your live BigCommerce data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.