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 alternative_energy_laws_and_incentives_in_colorado table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w:latest"."alternative_energy_laws_and_incentives_in_colorado"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"usercategories", -- Search by the user type. A single type, or a comma-separate list of multiple types, may be given. Values and what they stand for are as follows: 'IND' for Vehicle Owner/Driver, 'FLEET' for Fleet Purchaser/Manager, 'STATION' for Fueling / TSE Infrastructure Owner, 'AFP' for Alternative Fuel Producer, 'AFS' for Alternative Fuel Dealer, 'PURCH' for Alternative Fuel Purchaser, 'MAN' for AFV Manufacturer/Retrofitter, and 'OTHER' for Other
"regulationcategories", -- Search by the regulation type. A single type, or a comma-separate list of multiple types, may be given. Values and what they stand for are as follows: 'REGIS' for Registration / Licensing, 'STD' for Fuel Production / Quality, 'DREST' for Driving / Idling, 'REQ' for Acquisition / Fuel Use, 'FUEL' for Fuel Taxes, 'RFS' for Renewable Fuel Standard / Mandate, 'OTHER' for Other, 'AIRQEMISSIONS' for Air Quality / Emissions, and 'CCEINIT' for Climate Change / Energy Initiatives
"incentivecategories", -- Search by the technology type. A single type, or a comma-separate list of multiple types, may be given. Values and what they stand for are as follows: 'BIOD' for Biodiesel, 'ETH' for Ethanol, 'NG' for Natural Gas, 'LPG' for Propane (LPG), 'HY' for Hydrogen Fuel Cells, 'EFFEC' for Fuel Economy / Efficiency, 'IR' for Idle Reduction, 'ELEC' for EVs, 'HEV' for HEVs / PHEVs, 'OTHER' for Other, 'AFTMKTCONV' for Aftermarket Conversions, and 'NEVS' for NEVs
"lawid", -- A unique identifier for this specific incentive/law/regulation.
"references", -- Source of information if available
"technologycategories", -- Search by the technology type. A single type, or a comma-separate list of multiple types, may be given. Values and what they stand for are as follows: 'BIOD' for Biodiesel, 'ETH' for Ethanol, 'NG' for Natural Gas, 'LPG' for Propane (LPG), 'HY' for Hydrogen Fuel Cells, 'EFFEC' for Fuel Economy / Efficiency, 'IR' for Idle Reduction, 'ELEC' for EVs, 'HEV' for HEVs / PHEVs, 'OTHER' for Other, 'AFTMKTCONV' for Aftermarket Conversions, and 'NEVS' for NEVs
"topic", -- For local incentive/regulation descriptions, the category that the incentive/regulation falls under, described below: Infrastructure Requirements, Vehicle Purchase and Infrastructure Development Incentives, Fuel Use Incentives, Parking Incentives, Technical Assistance, Vehicle Acquisition Requirements, Promotion Initiatives, Idle Reduction Requirements, Renewable Fuels Mandates and Standards
"significantupdatedate", -- When the last significant update to the law was made.
"type", -- The category that the incentive/law/regulation falls under, described below: -State Incentives, -Laws and Regulations, -Utility/Private Incentives,
"amendeddate", -- The date the incentive/law/regulation was updated through new legislation or rulemaking.
"title", -- The brief title assigned to the incentive/law/regulation description.
"agency", -- The agency with primary responsibility for federal incentives/regulations.
"repealeddate", -- The date legislation is enacted or a rulemaking is finalized to repeal the incentive/law/regulation.
"sequencenumber", -- The numerical value assigned to a description to show the order in which it is displayed online within a jurisdiction (state).
"isrecent", -- The true or false value used to distinguish between recent federal executive actions (TRUE) and active incentives/laws/regulations (FALSE).
"archiveddate", -- The date that an incentive/law/regulation is no longer relevant to the database. This may include longstanding Executive Orders or laws requiring legislative studies that have been completed.
"enacteddate", -- The date the enacting legislation (if applicable) was signed into law.
"text", -- Description of the incentive/law/regulation, including applicable legislative references, html formated
"expireddate" -- The date the incentive/law/regulation is set to end.
FROM
"colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w:latest"."alternative_energy_laws_and_incentives_in_colorado"
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 colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w 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 colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w: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 colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8wCheckout 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 colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w 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 colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w: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 colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w: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, colorado-gov/alternative-energy-laws-and-incentives-in-colorado-nxw4-ev8w is just another Postgres schema.