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 2022_ntd_annual_data_funding_sources_local
table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3:latest"."2022_ntd_annual_data_funding_sources_local"
or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"fuel_tax", -- Revenue from taxing fuel.
"property_tax", -- Revenue from taxing property.
"sales_tax", -- Revenue from taxing sales.
"city", -- The city in which the agency is headquartered.
"income_tax", -- Revenue from taxing income.
"general_fund", -- Any funds allocated to transit out of the general revenues of the local or state government. General revenue funds are usually granted through a state or local government’s annual budgeting process.
"agency_voms", -- The number of revenue vehicles operated across the whole agency to meet the annual maximum service requirement. This is the revenue vehicle count during the peak season of the year; on the week and day that maximum service is provided. Vehicles operated in maximum service (VOMS) exclude atypical days and one-time special events.
"primary_uza_population", -- The population of the urbanized area primarily served by the agency.
"uza_name", -- The name of the agency's Urbanized Area.
"uace_code", -- UACE Code remains consistent across census years.
"organization_type", -- Description of the agency's legal entity.
"ntd_id", -- A five-digit identifying number for each agency used in the current NTD system.
"reporter_type", -- The type of NTD report that the agency completed this year.
"state", -- The state in which the agency is headquartered.
"report_year", -- The year for which the data was reported.
"agency", -- The transit agency's name.
"total", -- Total of the funding sources in previous columns.
"reduced_reporter_funds", -- Local funding sources reported by agencies that do not report funding sources in specific categories because they have reduced reporting requirements.
"other_funds", -- Revenue from funds imposed on the public other than taxes, such as: -Vehicle licensing and registration fees -Lottery and casino proceeds -Sale of property and assets
"tolls", -- Revenue from tolls on bridges, highways, and high occupancy/toll lanes.
"other_taxes" -- Revenues generated from a charge imposed by the state or local government, or independent political entity (e.g., transit authority) on persons or property to help pay expenses, including: -Payroll taxes -Utility taxes -Communication taxes (e.g., telephone taxes) -Motor vehicle and tire excise taxes But excluding: -Income taxes -Property taxes -Sales taxes -Fuel taxes
FROM
"datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3:latest"."2022_ntd_annual_data_funding_sources_local"
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 datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3
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; sgr
can 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 clone
and sgr checkout
.
Cloning Data
Because datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3: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 datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3
Checkout 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 datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3:latest
This will download all the objects for the latest
tag of datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3
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 datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3: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 datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3:latest
This 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, datahub-transportation-gov/2022-ntd-annual-data-funding-sources-local-8tvb-ywj3
is just another Postgres schema.