Query the Data Delivery Network
Query the DDNThe easiest way to query any data on Splitgraph is via the "Data Delivery Network" (DDN). The DDN is a single endpoint that speaks the PostgreSQL wire protocol. Any Splitgraph user can connect to it at data.splitgraph.com:5432 and query any version of over 40,000 datasets that are hosted or proxied by Splitgraph.
For example, you can query the bikeshare_docked_and_dockless_and_escooter_systems table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz:latest"."bikeshare_docked_and_dockless_and_escooter_systems"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"yearplaceid", -- Identifier for city by year
"city", -- Name of city served by bikeshare or e-scooter system
"docklessclosed", -- Date dockless bikeshare system shut-down
"scooterclosed", -- Date e-scooter system shut-down
"dockid", -- Identifier for docked bikeshare system
"stationct", -- Number of bikeshare stations in docked bikeshare system
"stationct_pct", -- Number of bikeshare stations in docked bikeshare system as percent of total docked bikeshare stations (all systems) for month
"dockct", -- Number of docked bikeshare systems serving area
"docknm", -- Docked bikeshare system name
"docknmsuspended", -- Name of docked bikeshare system suspended or shut-down
"docklessnm", -- Name of dockless bikeshare system
"scooterct", -- Number of e-scooter systems serving area
"scooterct_bin", -- Bin used for mapping scooterCt. 1 = 1 e-scooter system serving area, 2 = 2 e-scooter systems, 3= 3 e-scooter systems, 4 = 4 or more e-scooter systems serving area
"scooternm", -- Name of e-scooter system serving area
"scooternmsuspended", -- Name of e-scooter system suspended or shut-down
"lat", -- Latitude for approximate area served
"lon", -- Longitude for approximate area served
"suspscooterct", -- Number of e-scooter systems serving area that temporarily suspended operations.
"closedscooterct", -- Number of e-scooter systems serving area that are indefinitely closed.
"suspdocklessct", -- Number of dockless bikeshare systems serving area that temporarily suspended operations.
"suspdockct", -- Number of docked bikeshare systems serving area that temporarily suspended operations.
"docknotes", -- Notes for dockNm field
"scooternotes", -- Notes for scooterNm field
"scooterclosednotes", -- Notes for closed e-scooter systems
"docksuspendednotes", -- Notes for suspended docked bikeshare systems
"stationct_bin", -- Bin used for mapping stationCt_pct. 1 = system accounts for less than 1% of total docked stations in month, 2 = greater than or equal to 1% but less than 3%, 3=greater than or equal to 3% but less than 5%, 4=greater than or equal to 5%
"scootersuspended", -- Date e-scooter system suspended
"docklesssuspended", -- Date dockless bikeshare system suspended
"dockclosed", -- Date docked bikeshare system shut-down
"citystate", -- City and state name
"the_geom", -- Point
"closeddockct", -- Number of docked bikeshare systems serving area that are indefinitely closed.
"type", -- Type of systems serving area
"year", -- Year
"closeddocklessct", -- Number of dockless bikeshare systems serving area that are indefinitely closed.
"month", -- Month
"docksuspended", -- Date docked bikeshare system suspended
"docklesssuspendednotes", -- Notes for suspended dockless bikeshare systems
"docklessct_bin", -- Bin used for mapping docklessCt. 1 = 1 dockless bikeshare system serving area, 2 = 2 dockless systems, 3= 3 dockless systems, 4 = 4 or more dockless bikeshare systems serving area
"docklessclosednotes", -- Notes for closed dockless bikeshare systems
"docklessnotes", -- Notes for docklessNm field
"scootersuspendednotes", -- Notes for suspended e-scooter systems
"dockclosednotes", -- Notes for closed docked bikeshare systems
":@computed_region_wbq9_i9bc",
":@computed_region_nw2e_u85y",
"docklessnmsuspended", -- Name of dockless bikeshare system suspended or shut-down
"docklessct", -- Number of dockless bikeshare systems serving area
"state", -- State name
"placeid" -- Identifier for city
FROM
"bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz:latest"."bikeshare_docked_and_dockless_and_escooter_systems"
LIMIT 100;Connecting to the DDN is easy. All you need is an existing SQL client that can connect to Postgres. As long as you have a SQL client ready, you'll be able to query bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz with SQL in under 60 seconds.
Query Your Local Engine
bash -c "$(curl -sL https://github.com/splitgraph/splitgraph/releases/latest/download/install.sh)"Read the installation docs.
Splitgraph Cloud is built around Splitgraph Core (GitHub), which includes a local Splitgraph Engine packaged as a Docker image. Splitgraph Cloud is basically a scaled-up version of that local Engine. When you query the Data Delivery Network or the REST API, we mount the relevant datasets in an Engine on our servers and execute your query on it.
It's possible to run this engine locally. You'll need a Mac, Windows or Linux system to install sgr, and a Docker installation to run the engine. You don't need to know how to actually use Docker; sgrcan manage the image, container and volume for you.
There are a few ways to ingest data into the local engine.
For external repositories, the Splitgraph Engine can "mount" upstream data sources by using sgr mount. This feature is built around Postgres Foreign Data Wrappers (FDW). You can write custom "mount handlers" for any upstream data source. For an example, we blogged about making a custom mount handler for HackerNews stories.
For hosted datasets (like this repository), where the author has pushed Splitgraph Images to the repository, you can "clone" and/or "checkout" the data using sgr cloneand sgr checkout.
Cloning Data
Because bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz:latest is a Splitgraph Image, you can clone the data from Spltgraph Cloud to your local engine, where you can query it like any other Postgres database, using any of your existing tools.
First, install Splitgraph if you haven't already.
Clone the metadata with sgr clone
This will be quick, and does not download the actual data.
sgr clone bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bzCheckout the data
Once you've cloned the data, you need to "checkout" the tag that you want. For example, to checkout the latest tag:
sgr checkout bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz and load them into the Splitgraph Engine. Depending on your connection speed and the size of the data, you will need to wait for the checkout to complete. Once it's complete, you will be able to query the data like you would any other Postgres database.
Alternatively, use "layered checkout" to avoid downloading all the data
The data in bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz:latest is 0 bytes. If this is too big to download all at once, or perhaps you only need to query a subset of it, you can use a layered checkout.:
sgr checkout --layered bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz:latestThis will not download all the data, but it will create a schema comprised of foreign tables, that you can query as you would any other data. Splitgraph will lazily download the required objects as you query the data. In some cases, this might be faster or more efficient than a regular checkout.
Read the layered querying documentation to learn about when and why you might want to use layered queries.
Query the data with your existing tools
Once you've loaded the data into your local Splitgraph Engine, you can query it with any of your existing tools. As far as they're concerned, bts-gov/bikeshare-docked-and-dockless-and-escooter-systems-8cjz-h8bz is just another Postgres schema.