I frequently use various label maker applications on Windows (e.g. ZebraDesigner) where I want to print labels based on data in my Baserow database. These programs support connecting to an external database via ODBC.
My current process involves a small utility custom app that queries my Baserow DB, and exports relevant data into an xlsx file, which is then used by the label maker app. This is a somewhat annoying multi-step process.
It would be really nice if I could have a direct ODBC connection to my Baserow DB, even if I had to write some format translation code to put in the middle, to make this process a lot smoother.
Are there any good products/libraries/tools out there for accomplishing this? I’m thinking of something that looks like an ODBC driver on the Windows side, but speaks a JSON REST API out the other side. All I’ve found so far are some expensive commercial tools that may or may not work, but are all intended for more complicated integrations than what I’m going for here.
I don’t mind writing a little code, but I’d rather avoid getting neck deep in windows DB driver development.
I think the chance of having some ODBC driver to query Baserow with SQL is currently close to zero. You can connect to the underlying PostgreSQL itself tho, but you will need to know how to do that within the Baserow schema. It’s not something we generally recommend, unless your use case is trivial.
Another approach is to use two-way data sync and mirror some data from Baserow to a SQL database, and use data from there.
I know there are some products out there for building an ODBC ↔ REST API connector, though like so many Windows things they’re expensive and targeting a more enterprise-y use case. And I have no idea how well they work.
I’d honestly be happy with something that lets me write my own program that can speak the Baserow API on one side, and expose itself via ODBC on the other side, and just present a few custom table views with limited query capabilities. Makes me wonder if there’s some sort of “easy” way to write code that exposes itself to an ODBC driver, where I can worry about the rest of it myself.
