Query Confluence 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 Confluence, you can access live Confluence 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 Confluence data.

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

Connecting to Confluence 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.

Obtaining an API Token

An API token is necessary for account authentication. To generate one, login to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

Connect Using a Confluence Cloud Account

To connect to a Cloud account, provide the following (Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.):

• User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the Confluence server.
• APIToken: The API Token associated with the currently authenticated user.
• Url: The URL associated with your JIRA endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

Connect Using a Confluence Server Instance

To connect to a Server instance, provide the following:

• User: The user which will be used to authenticate with the Confluence instance.
• Password: The password which will be used to authenticate with the Confluence server.
• Url: The URL associated with your JIRA endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Confluence 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 Confluence from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryConfluence() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData Confluence Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Key, Name FROM Pages');
    console.log(data);
}

queryConfluence();

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 Confluence and start working with your live Confluence data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.