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 2023_lead_in_drinking_water_sampling_results table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc:latest"."2023_lead_in_drinking_water_sampling_results"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"sample_name", -- Unique identifier assigned to sample by field staff.
"school", -- Individual School building sample was collected from.
"district", -- School District or LEA the sample was collected from.
"unit_ppb_", -- The value of the result of lab analysis expressed in parts per billion (ppb)
"unit", -- All lab results are reported in milligrams of lead per liter of water (mg/L).
"location_description", -- Fixture location description of where the sample was pulled from.
"date_collected", -- Date the sample was physically taken.
"permanent_solution", -- Actions taken to permanently reduce or eliminate lead exposures in samples over 7.5 ppb (0.0075 mg/L)
"immediate_response", -- Immediate actions taken to address concentrations over 7.5 ppb (0.0075 mg/L)
"sample_type", -- Primary Sample (P) – commonly referred to as a first-draw sample, this is the first sample collected after the water has been left stagnant in the system for the required 8-16 hours. This is representative of the conditions present at the beginning of the day or after periods of infrequent use. Sequential Sample (S) – This is a sample collected after the first-draw in fixtures, such as water fountains with coolers, to help determine if coolers, storage units or other components are potential sources of lead. Flush Sample (F) – This is the last sample collected and helps determine if plumbing leading to a fixture is a potential source of lead.
"facility_location_id", -- More than one sample is collected at each fixture. This column identifies which samples are related to the same fixture.
"result_mg_l", -- Amount of lead found in the sample from analysis reported in mg/L.
"result_ppb_", -- The value of the result of lab analysis expressed in parts per billion (ppb)
"qualifier", -- U – indicates that lead was not detected above the laboratory reporting limit J – result was below the laboratory reporting limit of 2 ppb (0.002 mg/L) but above the method detection limit of 0.6 ppb (0.0006 mg/L). This is considered an estimated value.
"reporting_limit", -- This is the smallest concentration of lead that can be accurately reported by the laboratory.
"confirmation_sampling" -- Indicates whether confirmation sampling has been completed and whether the samples confirm levels are now below the program action limit.
FROM
"delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc:latest"."2023_lead_in_drinking_water_sampling_results"
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 delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc 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 delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc: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 delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wuncCheckout 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 delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc 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 delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc: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 delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc: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, delaware-gov/2023-lead-in-drinking-water-sampling-results-fz6m-wunc is just another Postgres schema.