Query Hacker News 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 API Driver for ODBC, you can access live Hacker News 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 Hacker News data.

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

Connecting to Hacker News 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.

Connecting to HackerNews

The HackerNews API (powered by Firebase) is a public API that requires no authentication. You can connect and query data immediately without any credentials.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

• AuthScheme: Set this to None.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\HackerNews.apip;AuthScheme=None

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Hacker News 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 Hacker News from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryAPI() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData API Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT ,  FROM TopStories');
    console.log(data);
}

queryAPI();

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

node myscript.js

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