Query Zoho Creator 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 Zoho Creator, you can access live Zoho Creator 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 Zoho Creator data.

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

Connecting to Zoho Creator 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.

The connector is already registered with Zoho Creator as an OAuth application.

If you would prefer to use your own custom OAuth app, see the Help documentation.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Zoho Creator 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 Zoho Creator from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryZohoCreator() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData ZohoCreator Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT ID, Leave_Type FROM Leave_Types');
    console.log(data);
}

queryZohoCreator();

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