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

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

Connecting to Lakebase 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.

• DatabricksInstance: The Databricks instance or server hostname, provided in the format instance-abcdef12-3456-7890-abcd-abcdef123456.database.cloud.databricks.com.
• Server: The host name or IP address of the server hosting the Lakebase database.
• Port (optional): The port of the server hosting the Lakebase database, set to 5432 by default.
• Database (optional): The database to connect to after authenticating to the Lakebase Server, set to the authenticating user's default database by default.

OAuth Client Authentication

To authenicate using OAuth client credentials, you need to configure an OAuth client in your service principal. In short, you need to do the following:

1. Create and configure a new service principal
2. Assign permissions to the service principal
3. Create an OAuth secret for the service principal

For more information, refer to the Setting Up OAuthClient Authentication section in the Help documentation.

OAuth PKCE Authentication

To authenticate using the OAuth code type with PKCE (Proof Key for Code Exchange), set the following properties:

• AuthScheme: OAuthPKCE.
• User: The authenticating user's user ID.

For more information, refer to the Help documentation.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Lakebase 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 Lakebase from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryLakebase() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData Lakebase Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT ShipName, ShipCity FROM Orders');
    console.log(data);
}

queryLakebase();

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