Postgres access with ojs

[lyon-fnal]

Hi, I'm wondering if it is possible to access a Postgres database using ojs cells. Observable seems to have their own database access system - I don't think that works with Quarto. If I try to,

```{ojs}
require("postgres")
```

gives the dreaded RequireError: invalid module. I've also tried the pq package and get the same result. Tips at https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/how-to-require-stubborn-modules didn't help.

Any ideas here? Being able to directly access a large database with an interactive ojs document would be a very nice feature to have. Thanks!

[cscheid]

I don't that's a quarto issue, since that module doesn't work on observablehq.com either:

If you find a javascript module that can access a postgres database, then that should work. (Are postgres databases directly available through HTTP? It would appear that you need, at least, something like https://github.com/PostgREST/postgrest)

[lyon-fnal]

Thanks @cscheid -Observable seems to have their own DB connection system described at https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/databases . They do have a self-hosted proxy - maybe I'll try that. I think you're right that the postgres package won't work in this context - I think that's meant to run in node and not in the browser.

[cscheid]

Do note that that page is tagged with their pro label, which is, generally speaking, part of observablehq.com's proprietary offering that quarto does not have access to.

[lyon-fnal]

Indeed. It looks like DatabaseClient is not part of the public stdlib.