Query Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog, you can access live Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog data.

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

Connecting to Azure Data Catalog 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.

You can optionally set the following to read the different catalog data returned from Azure Data Catalog.

CatalogName: Set this to the CatalogName associated with your Azure Data Catalog. To get your Catalog name, navigate to your Azure Portal home page > Data Catalog > Catalog Name

Connect Using OAuth Authentication

You must use OAuth to authenticate with Azure Data Catalog. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Azure Data Catalog using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the help documentation.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Azure Data Catalog 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 Azure Data Catalog from Node.js

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

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryAzureDataCatalog() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData AzureDataCatalog Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT DslAddressDatabase, Type FROM Tables');
    console.log(data);
}

queryAzureDataCatalog();

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