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 dispensation_data_without_buprenorphine_quarter_3
table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z:latest"."dispensation_data_without_buprenorphine_quarter_3"
or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"longitude", -- This includes a generic point of Longitude for each county and a generic point for the state of PA to help with creating visuals such as maps. If the statewide total for PA should be shown on the map, this latitude provides the means to show the statewide total at the SE part of PA actually in Maryland, so that the statewide total can be shown on on the map without adding to the total within another county.
"latitude", -- This includes a generic point of Latitude for each county and a generic point for the state of PA to help with creating visuals such as maps. If the statewide total for PA should be shown on the map, this latitude provides the means to show the statewide total at the SE part of PA actually in Maryland, so that the statewide total can be shown on on the map without adding to the total within another county.
"state_fips_code", -- These are the first 2 digits of the 5-digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code that designate the State association. Each State has its own 2-digit number and each County within the state has its own 3-digit number which are combined into a 5-digit number to uniquely identify every US county. For more technical details : Federal Information Processing Standards Publications (FIPS PUBS) are issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) after approval by the Secretary of Commerce pursuant to Section 111 (d) of the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act of 1949 as amended by the Computer Security Act of 1987, Public Law 100-235. Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 6-4, Counties and Equivalent Entities of the U.S., Its Possessions, and Associated Areas -- 90 Aug 31 , provides the names and codes that represent the counties and other entities treated as equivalent legal and/or statistical subdivisions of the 50 States, the District of Columbia, and the possessions and freely associated areas of the United States. Counties are considered to be the "first-order subdivisions" of each State and statistically equivalent entity, regardless of their local designations (county, parish, borough, etc.). Information gathered from census data - https://www.census.gov/library/reference/code-lists/ansi.html
"county_code_text", -- There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania. They are number 01 through 67 in alphabetical order; 00 identifies the statewides totals. This column has the codes formatted as text fields to integrate with other files where county codes are used in place of names and for easier coding within certain software
"county_code_number", -- There are 67 counties in Pennsylvania. They are number 01 through 67 in alphabetical order; 00 identifies the statewides totals.
"quarter_date_start", -- Start date for the Quarter for which the data is being reported
"time_period", -- Timeframe for calculated rate in the format of Year and Calendar Quarter (YYYY QQ)
"year", -- Calendar Year the data is based on
"time_measure", -- Time frame the rate is based on
"age_group", -- Indicates whether data represents total age population (All Ages) or specific Age Groups, including 0-14 years of age, 15-24 years of age, 25-34 years of age, 35-44 years of age, 45-54 years of age, 55-64 years of age or 65 and older (65+).
"type_of_rate_or_count_measure", -- Identifies whether the Rate or Count Column displays the count of dispensations filled by a dispensary and given to a patient or the Rate of Dispensations per 1000 Residents - calculated using quarterly counts as numerators and county populations as denominators; based on the location of the dispensary
"rate_or_count", -- Number of or calculated dispensation rate for each county and PENNSYLVANIA for opioid prescriptions that have been filled by a dispensary and given to a patient. Blank field indicates data was suppressed due to count between 1 and 5.
"county_name", -- Pennsylvania County name; includes PENNSYLVANIA for the statewide rates
"county_fips_code", -- The FIPS county code is a five-digit Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) code (FIPS 6-4) which uniquely identifies counties and county equivalents in the United States, certain U.S. possessions, and certain freely associated states. This is the 3-digit part of the 5-digit county FIPS code specifically standing for the county.
"type_of_drug_class", -- Identifies the group of drugs being reported on. Opioids (All Schedule) - excluding buprenorphine - includes Schedule II - V opioid dispensations except buprenorphine dispensations (https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml;jsessionid=2C85B8DEBFB1BB15A7D31E29A34C3DAA?req=granuleid%3AUSC-prelim-title21&saved=%7CZ3JhbnVsZWlkOlVTQy1wcmVsaW0tdGl0bGUyMS1zZWN0aW9uODAx%7C%7C%7C0%7Cfalse%7Cprelim&edition=prelim ) dispensation = a prescription that has been filled by a dispensary and given to a patient
"geocoded_column", -- This includes a georeferenced generic point of Longitude for each county and a generic point for the state of PA to help with creating visuals such as maps. If the statewide total for PA should be shown on the map, this latitude provides the means to show the statewide total at the SE part of PA actually in Maryland, so that the statewide total can be shown on on the map without adding to the total within another county.
"gender", -- Indicates whether data represents both genders (All Genders) or separate values for Males and Females.
"notes", -- Provides information about data suppression
":@computed_region_d3gw_znnf",
":@computed_region_r6rf_p9et",
":@computed_region_rayf_jjgk",
":@computed_region_amqz_jbr4",
":@computed_region_nmsq_hqvv"
FROM
"pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z:latest"."dispensation_data_without_buprenorphine_quarter_3"
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 pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z
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 pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z: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 pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z
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 pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z:latest
This will download all the objects for the latest
tag of pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z
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 pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z: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 pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z: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, pa-gov/dispensation-data-without-buprenorphine-quarter-3-rr54-ur6z
is just another Postgres schema.