Query Printful Data from Node.js



The API Server exposes Web services that allow connectivity to your data. Use the OData endpoint of the CData API Server to execute CRUD queries to Printful data from Node.js.

The CData API Server, when paired with the ADO.NET Provider for Printful, exposes Printful data (or data from any of 200+ other ADO.NET Providers) as an OData endpoint, which can be queried from Node.js using simple HTTP requests. This article shows how to use the API Server to request JSON-formatted Printful data in Node.js.

Set Up the API Server

Follow the steps below to begin producing secure Printful OData services:

Deploy

The API Server runs on your own server. On Windows, you can deploy using the stand-alone server or IIS. On a Java servlet container, drop in the API Server WAR file. See the help documentation for more information and how-tos.

The API Server is also easy to deploy on Microsoft Azure, Amazon EC2, and Heroku.

Connect to Printful

After you deploy the API Server and the ADO.NET Provider for Printful, provide authentication values and other connection properties needed to connect to Printful by clicking Settings -> Connections and adding a new connection in the API Server administration console.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Printful Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Printful.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Printful (see below).

Printful API Profile Settings

In order to authenticate to Printful, you'll need to provide your API Key. To get your API Key, first go to 'Settings' then 'Stores'. Select the Store you would like to connect to, then click the 'Add API Access' button to generate an API Key. Set the API Key in the ProfileSettings property to connect.

You can then choose the Printful entities you want to allow the API Server access to by clicking Settings -> Resources.

Authorize API Server Users

After determining the OData services you want to produce, authorize users by clicking Settings -> Users. The API Server uses authtoken-based authentication and supports the major authentication schemes. Access can also be restricted based on IP address; all IP addresses except the local machine are restricted by default. You can authenticate as well as encrypt connections with SSL.

Consume Printful OData Feeds from Node.js

OData feeds are easy to work with in Node.js. You can use the HTTP client in Node.js to request JSON-formatted data from the API Server's OData endpoint. After making the request, you can construct the body of the response and call the JSON.parse() function to parse it into records.

The code below will make an authenticated request for Orders data. The example URL below applies a simple filter that searches for records with a value of inprocess in the Status column.

var http = require('http'); http.get({ protocol: "http:", hostname: "MyServer.com", port: MyPort, path: "/api.rsc/Orders?$filter=" + encodeURIComponent("Status eq 'inprocess'"), auth: 'MyUser:MyAuthtoken' }, function(res) { var body = ''; res.on('data', function(chunk) { body += chunk; }); res.on('end', function() { console.log(body); var jsonData = JSON.parse(body); }); }).on('error', function(e) { console.log("Error: ", e); });

Ready to get started?

Learn more or sign up for a free trial:

CData API Server