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 city_record_online table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx:latest"."city_record_online"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"agency_name", -- The agency which has submitted the notice
"document_links", -- Links to the public facing City Record website to view any documents associated with the notice
"additional_description_3", -- Additional information regarding the notice not included in other fields(3)
"other_info_1", -- Further information regarding the notice
"printout_1", -- Formatted OtherInfo or AdditionalDescription, depending on the notice
"additional_description_2", -- Additional information regarding the notice not included in other fields(2)
"additional_description_1", -- Additional information regarding the notice not included in other fields
"printout_2", -- Formatted OtherInfo or AdditionalDescription, depending on the notice(2)
"address_to_request", -- For procurement notices: The address to which bids or other responses are to be sent
"event_date", -- For public hearings and meetings notices: Date and time of event
"contact_phone", -- For procurement notices: The person to contact for procurement notice information
"other_info_3", -- Further information regarding the notice(3)
"other_info_2", -- Further information regarding the notice(2)
"zip_code", -- For public hearings and meetings notices: Zip Code for the location where the event is being held
"type_of_notice_description", -- A description of the published notice
"printout_3", -- Formatted OtherInfo or AdditionalDescription, depending on the notice(3)
"vendor_address", -- For procurement award notices: address of vendor
"category_description", -- The category of the published notice
"section_name", -- The section of the City Record in which the notice appears
"vendor_name", -- For procurement award notices: name of vendor
"due_date", -- For procurement notices: The date when the bid or other response is due
"contact_fax", -- For procurement notices: The fax number for procurement notice information
"street_address_1", -- For public hearings and meetings notices: Address where the event is being held
"street_address_2", -- For public hearings and meetings notices: Address where the event is being held(2)
"request_id", -- Unique identifier for the City Record notice
"start_date", -- The first date on which the notice appears in the paper publication
"end_date", -- The last date on which the notice appears in the paper publication
"short_title", -- Short Title
"selection_method_description", -- For procurement notices: the selection method to be used, such as Competitive Sealed Bids or Competitive Sealed Proposals
"special_case_reason_description", -- For procurement notices: the rationale for using the listed selection method, such as "available only from a single source"
"pin", -- For procurement notices: Procurement Identification Number
"contact_name", -- For procurement notices: The person to contact for procurement notice information
"email", -- For procurement notices: The email address to which requests for procurement notice information can be sent
"contract_amount", -- For procurement notices: The amount of the contract for which bids or other responses are being solicited
"building_name", -- For public hearings and meetings notices: Building name where the event is being held
"city", -- For public hearings and meetings notices: City where the event is being held
"state" -- For public hearings and meetings notices: State where the event is being held
FROM
"cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx:latest"."city_record_online"
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 cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx 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 cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx: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 cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpxCheckout 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 cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx 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 cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx: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 cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx: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, cityofnewyork-us/city-record-online-dg92-zbpx is just another Postgres schema.