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Hello, first of all, the Airtable API documentation is great. That said, closely following the example code, i’m trying to understand how I might do something functional with the retrieve method.



Here is the example I am given from the API docs for my table ‘Users’



base('Users').select({


    // Selecting the first 3 records in Grid view:


    maxRecords: 3,


    view: "Grid view"


}).eachPage(function page(records, fetchNextPage) {


    // This function (`page`) will get called for each page of records.





    records.forEach(function(record) {


        console.log('Retrieved', record.get('ID'));


    });





    // To fetch the next page of records, call `fetchNextPage`.


    // If there are more records, `page` will get called again.


    // If there are no more records, `done` will get called.


    fetchNextPage();





}, function done(err) {


    if (err) { console.error(err); return; }


});


What i’d like to do is wrap this example up in a function and return an array of all records. But I don’t see how I might do that from the current documentation.



But additionally, having explored the source code, I’m wondering whether there is something missing?



In the firstPage() and all() functions, I notice the done() function has two signatures: error case: done(err, null) and success case: done(null, allRecords). But in the eachPage function in the success case, the records are not passed on, it’s simply done(null).



I do have limited experience with javascript and node.js though so maybe this all fine. But seeing as there are one or two other threads on this forum of people having a similar issue, it might be at least worth giving a few more examples in the Airtable API documentation on how I might retrieve all records using the eachPage function.



Thanks for any help and clarity you might be able to provide.



Thanks,


Oliver

Hi Ollie,



I ran into the same kind of trouble a while ago.



Here is a function I came up with:



async function getRecordsFromAirtable(table, options = {}) {


    let recordsArray = [];


    await table.select(options).eachPage((records, fetchNextPage) => {


        recordsArray = [...recordsArray, ...records];


        fetchNextPage();


    })


        .catch(error => { console.error(error); return false; })


    return recordsArray;


}


With the example from the documentation you could adjust it as follows:



async function getRecordsFromAirtable() {


    let recordsArray = [];





    await base('Users').select({


        maxRecords: 3,


        view: "Grid view"


    }).eachPage((records, fetchNextPage) => {


        recordsArray = [...recordsArray, ...records];


        fetchNextPage();


    })


        .catch(error => { console.error(error); return false; })





    return recordsArray;


}


Hope that helps.

Hi Ollie,



I ran into the same kind of trouble a while ago.



Here is a function I came up with:



async function getRecordsFromAirtable(table, options = {}) {


    let recordsArray = [];


    await table.select(options).eachPage((records, fetchNextPage) => {


        recordsArray = [...recordsArray, ...records];


        fetchNextPage();


    })


        .catch(error => { console.error(error); return false; })


    return recordsArray;


}


With the example from the documentation you could adjust it as follows:



async function getRecordsFromAirtable() {


    let recordsArray = [];





    await base('Users').select({


        maxRecords: 3,


        view: "Grid view"


    }).eachPage((records, fetchNextPage) => {


        recordsArray = [...recordsArray, ...records];


        fetchNextPage();


    })


        .catch(error => { console.error(error); return false; })





    return recordsArray;


}


Hope that helps.


Hi Roark,



This is very helpful thankyou. As a predominantly Python programmer, I haven’t yet got async calls sussed and my attempts to populate an array were not going so well. Thanks for sharing a working example.

Hi Roark,



This is very helpful thankyou. As a predominantly Python programmer, I haven’t yet got async calls sussed and my attempts to populate an array were not going so well. Thanks for sharing a working example.




You are not alone. Airtable should consider adding a Python scripting engine. I know - the engineers at Airtable are at this moment saying -





But Bill, you complained for three years about no javascript capability - we added that and now you’re not happy; you want another language?





Yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying. Why? Simple answer…





  • Airtable is rapidly becoming a data store of lots of business and organizational data.


  • The platform’s advances in automation and integration capabilities have caused it to attract increasingly more data.


  • The world is rapidly embracing data science as a key competitive advantage and Python is the logical and most powerful choice for data science.




Ergo, if you want to become the no/low-code platform of choice for data AND data science, add Python right away. The folks at SeaTable saw this train coming but it’s not too late to get on.

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