# How do I use new DB results?

**URL:** <https://talk.observablehq.com/t/how-do-i-use-new-db-results/10834>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [September 9, 2026, 2:35pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/how-do-i-use-new-db-results/10834 "2026-09-09T14:35:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![kpm-at-sonnys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/8797f3/32.png) [@kpm-at-sonnys](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/kpm-at-sonnys)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 2:35pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/how-do-i-use-new-db-results/10834/1 "2026-09-09T14:35:51Z")

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I guess I’m always here to ask the dumb questions.

```auto
const table = await db.sql`...blah...`

```

…gives me a `Table` in the new Standard Library. How do I use it? I was expecting it to be available via something like Apache Arrow or the ADBC driver, where I could do something like `const subset = table.filter(row => row.timestamp >= "2026-08-09 09:00")` but there’s no `filter()`. Do I need to `toArray()` everything and just work “old school”?

I looked for documentation, but I’m not seeing it.

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**Author:** ![mbostock](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/mbostock/32/9_2.png) [@mbostock](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/mbostock)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 3:10pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/how-do-i-use-new-db-results/10834/2 "2026-09-09T15:10:00Z")

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Yes, you need to use [`table.toArray`](https://idl.uw.edu/flechette/api/table#toArray) (or `[...table]` or `Array.from(table)`) if you want to call `array.filter`. An example is given in the [Database clients documentation](https://observablehq.com/@observablehq/database-clients).

In the near future, the SQL cell will support visual filtering using column summaries, which should help…

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**Author:** ![tophtucker](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/talk.observablehq.com/tophtucker/32/4781_2.png) [@tophtucker](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/tophtucker)\
**Post date:** [September 9, 2026, 3:29pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/how-do-i-use-new-db-results/10834/3 "2026-09-09T15:29:55Z")

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It should go without saying that we are always very grateful to anyone asking the “dumb” questions!! They are probably by far the most popular and broadly experienced issues!

(In life it’s not obvious what isn’t obvious…)

Flechette tables are not arrays, and thus don’t have the same array methods, but they are [_iterable_](https://idl.uw.edu/flechette/api/table.html), which means many functions handle them natively without requiring you to convert them to an array first. _E.g._:

`Plot.dot(table, {…})`

`Inputs.table(table, {…})`

`d3.max(table, d => …)`

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**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/uploads/observablehq/original/2X/8/8515fb2ace542ad82412d6c45906339e74f2053f.png) [@system](https://talk.observablehq.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 3:30pm UTC](https://talk.observablehq.com/t/how-do-i-use-new-db-results/10834/4 "2026-09-11T15:30:11Z")

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