Query SAS xpt 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 SASxpt, you can access live SAS xpt 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 SAS xpt data.

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

Connecting to SAS xpt 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 Local SASXpt Files

You can connect to local SASXpt file by setting the URI to a folder containing SASXpt files.

Connecting to S3 data source

You can connect to Amazon S3 source to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

• URI: Set this to the folder within your bucket that you would like to connect to.
• AWSAccessKey: Set this to your AWS account access key.
• AWSSecretKey: Set this to your AWS account secret key.
• TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

Connecting to Azure Data Lake Storage Gen2

You can connect to ADLS Gen2 to read SASXpt files. Set the following properties to connect:

• URI: Set this to the name of the file system and the name of the folder which contacts your SASXpt files.
• AzureAccount: Set this to the name of the Azure Data Lake storage account.
• AzureAccessKey: Set this to our Azure DataLakeStore Gen 2 storage account access key.
• TemporaryLocalFolder: Set this to the path, or URI, to the folder that is used to temporarily download SASXpt file(s).

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to SAS xpt 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 SAS xpt from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live SAS xpt data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the SampleTable_1 table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function querySASXpt() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData SASXpt Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Id, Column1 FROM SampleTable_1');
    console.log(data);
}

querySASXpt();

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