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 2012_budget_consultation_survey_satisfaction_with table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m:latest"."2012_budget_consultation_survey_satisfaction_with"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"b8_13", -- Infrastructure Renewal & Development (Neighbourhood Renewal Program – streets/sidewalks/streetlights in mature neighbourhoods; community enhancements from Great Neighbourhoods; drainage/sewer renewal, major project development – bridge renewal and replace
"b8_11", -- Public Library (digital and physical collections, 17 community locations, inter-library loans, reference services and public computers)
"b8_10", -- Drainage Services – utility (sanitary sewer systems, land drainage and stormwater management, tunneling, lot grading, design & construction, emergency repairs, environmental planning)
"b8_9", -- Waste Management Services – utility (garbage collection, litter management, eco stations and recycling operations, composting, Waste Management Centre, biofuels partnership)
"b8_7", -- City Governance (City Council, City Auditor, City Manager’s Office, Financial Services, City Clerk’s Office)
"b8_6", -- Planning, Housing and Buildings (urban planning, housing services, Environment Office, buildings & landscape services, City properties, land management, zoning, building permits and licensing, development administration, safety codes, assessment and site
"b8_5", -- Parks (playgrounds, sports fields, turf maintenance, river valley trails, forestry, pest management, parks maintenance, horticulture, parks planning, natural areas acquisition and preservation)
"b8_2", -- Police services (community policing, crime prevention, victim support, traffic & vehicles, special crime units and initiatives)
"b8_0", -- Public Transit (Buses, LRT, DATS, LRT expansion, security, transit stations/centres)
"d3", -- Area of City of Edmonton respondent lives in - Postal Code
"d2", -- Age Group - 1. Under 18 2. 18-34 3. 35-44 4. 45-60 5. 60+
"panelistidquestion", -- Survey ID
"b8a", -- Is there anything you can suggest that would make you happier about any of the city services?
"b8_3", -- Fire Rescue (fire suppression, medical response, hazardous material response, public safety and investigations, fire prevention & education, environmental emergency response, training and dispatch)
"civic_ward", -- City ward respondent lives in. Note: 99 - does not apply
"b8_1", -- Roads (pothole repair, snow clearing, design & construction, transportation planning, traffic safety, traffic operations, signals & street lighting)
"b2_2", -- Would you recommend Edmonton as a place to visit - 1. Definitely would recommend 2. Probably would recommend 3. Probably would not recommend 4. Definitely would not recommend 5. Not sure
"b1", -- Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with the overall quality of services provided by the City of Edmonton? 1. Very satisfied 2. Moderately satisfied 3. Moderately dissatisfied 4. Very dissatisfied 5. Not sure
"b2_1", -- Would you recommend Edmonton as a place to work - 1. Definitely would recommend 2. Probably would recommend 3. Probably would not recommend 4. Definitely would not recommend 5. Not sure
"b8_8", -- Corporate Support (Customer info services – 311 and website, Information Technology, Human Resources, Legal Branch, Fleet Services)
"b8_12", -- EEDC (Edmonton Economic Development, Edmonton Tourism, Shaw Conference Centre, Edmonton Film Commission, Edmonton Research Park, workforce/labour strategy, TEC Edmonton partnership)
"b11", -- Total annual household income - 1. Less than $25,000 2. $25,000 to $50,000 3. $51,000 to $75,000 4. $76,000 to $99,000 5. $100,000 or more 6. Prefer not to say
"b2_0", -- Would you recommend Edmonton as a place to live - 1. Definitely would recommend 2. Probably would recommend 3. Probably would not recommend 4. Definitely would not recommend 5. Not sure
"b8_4", -- Community & Neighbourhood Services (family & community support services, community facilities/recreation centres, pools, arenas, golf courses, City attractions, Zoo, Muttart, recreation programming, graffiti management, grant management, partnerships and
"d1" -- Gender - 1. Male 2. Female
FROM
"edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m:latest"."2012_budget_consultation_survey_satisfaction_with"
LIMIT 100;Connecting to the DDN is easy. All you need is an existing SQL client that can connect to Postgres. As long as you have a SQL client ready, you'll be able to query edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m with SQL in under 60 seconds.
Query Your Local Engine
bash -c "$(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 edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m: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 edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6mCheckout 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 edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m 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 edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m: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 edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m: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, edmonton-ca/2012-budget-consultation-survey-satisfaction-with-72aw-fq6m is just another Postgres schema.