How to retrieve specific column data from Airtable API

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1

I’m just starting with APIs and I successfully connected to Airtable to fetch data. However, my current setup pulls all the information from the table.

I need help with two things:

  1. How can I filter the response to only get data from one specific column? For example, I only want the “Title” column values.

  2. How can I verify if a particular value exists within that column?

Here’s my current code:

let baseUrl = "https://api.airtable.com/v0/"
let authToken = "Bearer abcdef123456"
let databaseId = "abcdef123456"
let sheetName = "/Main%20Sheet"
let completeUrl = baseUrl + databaseId + sheetName
console.log(baseUrl + databaseId + sheetName)

let request = new Request(completeUrl)

request.method = "GET"

request.headers={
  "Authorization":authToken,
  "Content-Type":"application/json",
  "fields":"Title"
}

let result = await request.loadString()

console.log(result)

Any guidance would be appreciated!

2

yup, no headers for query params! just append ?fields=Title to your completeUrl. for checking a value, after parsing the response do JSON.parse(result).records.find(r => r.fields.Title === 'whatever'). it returns undefined if there’s no match.

3

You’re treating fields as a header when it’s actually a URL parameter. Remove that fields line from your headers and fix your URL construction instead. I build the query string separately then append it: let queryParams = "?fields[]=Title" let completeUrl = baseUrl + databaseId + sheetName + queryParams. Those square brackets in fields matter - they handle multiple fields way better if you add more later. To check if a value exists, parse your result to JSON first, then filter: let jsonData = JSON.parse(result) let hasValue = jsonData.records.filter(record => record.fields.Title === "target value").length > 0. Airtable always wraps your data in a records array, and each record has a fields object. This threw me off at first since most APIs just return data directly.

4

Your headers approach won’t work - fields is a query parameter, not a header. Drop that line completely.

Build your URL like this instead:

let fieldsParam = "?fields=Title"
let completeUrl = baseUrl + databaseId + sheetName + fieldsParam

To check if a value exists in that column, parse the JSON response:

let data = JSON.parse(result)
let titleExists = data.records.some(record => record.fields.Title === "your search value")

I hit this same issue when I started with Airtable’s API. The response buries your data inside records[].fields.ColumnName, so you’ve got to dig into that nested structure.

The some() method returns true if it finds a match, false if not. Much cleaner than writing your own loop.

5

the fields parameter should go in the url, not the headers. so add ?fields=Title to your completeUrl like this: completeUrl + "?fields=Title". to check if a value exists, just parse the json response and loop through the records array to find it.

6

Had this exact problem last year! You’re mixing headers with query parameters. The fields parameter goes in the URL, not the headers. Your headers should just have Authorization and Content-Type. Change your URL construction to: let completeUrl = baseUrl + databaseId + sheetName + "?fields=Title". Airtable wraps everything in its own structure, so you’ll need to parse the JSON and grab your data through response.records[index].fields.Title. To check if a value exists, parse the response first, then use find() on the records array to search the Title field values. This works great across different bases.