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 bewes_building_data table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t:latest"."bewes_building_data"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"lat",
"compliance", -- Compliance status for the year indicated
"site_energ", -- Site Energy Use Intensity (Site EUI) is the annual amount of all the energy your property consumes on-site, as reported on your utility bills divided by the property square foot (kBtu/ft²). https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager/understand-metrics/what-energy
"weather_no", -- Source EUI is the total amount of all the raw fuel required to operate your property, including losses that take place during generation, transmission, and distribution of the energy divided by the property square foot (kBtu/ft²). Weather Normalized Source Energy is the source energy use your property would have consumed during 30-year average weather conditions. For example, if 2012 was a very hot year, then your Weather Normalized Source Energy may be lower than your Source Energy Use, because you would have used less energy if it had not been so hot. https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager/understand-metrics/difference https://portfoliomanager.energystar.gov/pdf/reference/US%20National%20Median%20Table.pdf
"long",
"georeference_location",
":@computed_region_u8wz_9eai", -- This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Orlando Main Street Program Area' (u8wz-9eai) the point in column 'georeference_location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens.
":@computed_region_bgqw_styj", -- This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Orlando Commissioner Districts' (bgqw-styj) the point in column 'georeference_location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens.
":@computed_region_gsfg_ku74", -- This column was automatically created in order to record in what polygon from the dataset 'Orlando Neighborhoods' (gsfg-ku74) the point in column 'georeference_location' is located. This enables the creation of region maps (choropleths) in the visualization canvas and data lens.
"year", -- Compliance Year
"building_i",
"building_s",
"property_a",
"primary_us",
"total_annu", -- Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions are the carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) gases released into the atmosphere as a result of energy consumption at the property. GHG emissions are expressed in carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), a universal unit of measure that combines the quantity and global warming potential of each greenhouse gas. Total Emissions is the sum of Direct Emissions and Indirect Emissions (Metric Tons CO2e). https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager/understand-metrics/how
"energy_sta", -- The ENERGY STAR Score is a measure of how well your property is performing relative to similar properties, when normalized for climate and operational characteristics. The ENERGY STAR scores are based on data from national building energy consumption surveys, and this allows Portfolio Manager to control for key variables affecting a building’s energy performance, including climate, hours of operation, and building size. What this means is that buildings from around the country, with different operating parameters and subject to different weather patterns, can be compared side-by-side in order to see how they stack up in terms of energy performance. The specific factors that are included in this normalization (Hours, Workers, Climate, etc) will depend on the property type. The 1-100 scale is set so that 1 represents the worst performing buildings and 100 represents the best performing buildings. A score of 50 indicates that a building is performing at the national median, taking into account its size, location, and operating parameters. https://www.energystar.gov/buildings/facility-owners-and-managers/existing-buildings/use-portfolio-manager/identify-your-property-type-0?testEnv=false
"commnts"
FROM
"cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t:latest"."bewes_building_data"
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 cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t 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 cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t: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 cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6tCheckout 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 cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t 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 cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t: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 cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t: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, cityoforlando/bewes-building-data-f63n-kp6t is just another Postgres schema.