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 annual_contracts table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d:latest"."annual_contracts"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"start_date", -- Estimated date for work to begin
"sb_woman", -- Small business woman owned
"cost_center_name", -- Description of Cost Center of the Department which the annual contract is for. This will often show which of the Department's Divisions issued the annual contract
"sb_disabled_vet", -- Small business disabled veteran
"cost_center", -- Cost Center of the Department which the annual contract is for. This will often show which of the Department's Divisions issued the annual contract
"vendor_type", -- Indicates the type of business the vendor is in
"sb_minority_woman", -- Small business minority woman owned
"total_items", -- Total number of detail items on annual contract. Each annual contract will have at least 1 detail item. Not applicable for D records, as there is only one item for each D record.
"independent_contractor", -- Whether or not the vendor is an independent contractor
"vendor_state",
"item_description", -- Description of good or service being ordered on this annual contract line item.
"extension_date", -- Date contract has been extended
"item_unit_cost", -- Code classifying the type of good/service being purchased.
"item_unit_of_measure", -- Code indicating Unit of Measure for this annual contract line item.
"ethnicity",
"sb_disadvantaged", -- Small business disadvantaged business enterprise
"expiration_date", -- Expected date for work to end
"document_status_description", -- Description of the status of the annual contract.
"sb_minority", -- Small business minority owned
"vendor_zip",
"vendor_name_2",
"commodity_description", -- Description classifying the type of good/service being purchased.
"commodity_code", -- Code classifying the type of good/service being purchased.
"item_number", -- Sequential number of the detail annual contract line item.
"requisition_number", -- Requisition number used for purchase
"document_number", -- Numeric ID of the annual contract
"sb_non_minority", -- Small business non-minority owned
"record_type", -- H or D. H indicates record is a header record. D indicates a detail record. An annual contract will have 1 header record and at least 1 detail item
"gender",
"input_date", -- Date annual contract was entered into the system
"item_quantity_ordered", -- Maximum item quantity that can be procured on this contract
"vouched_amount", -- Actual amount invoiced against annual contract. This amount may be less than the original annual contract amount.
"purchase_orders", -- The purchase orders used against this contract
"document_status_code", -- Code indicating the status of the annual contract.
"vendor_city",
"status", -- Vendor's status A=Active, B=Bidder, I=Inactive, O=One Time Pay, S=Stop, T=Temporary, S=Self Service
"minority", -- Is the vendor a minority business enterprise
"disabled_veteran", -- Disabled veteran business enterprise
"sb_veteran", -- Small business veteran owned
"department_name", -- Department name which the annual contract is for
"geographic_area", -- Geographic area of vendor (INP=In EBR Parish, INS=In State, USA=In Country, INTL=International
"document_description", -- Description of the annual contract
"disadvantaged", -- Disadvantaged business enterprise
"department_number", -- Number of the department which the annual contract is for
"class", -- The vendor's classification (LLC, Corporation, Sole Proprietor, etc)
"vendor_name_1" -- Vendor's primary business name
FROM
"brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d:latest"."annual_contracts"
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 brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d 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 brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d: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 brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5dCheckout 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 brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d 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 brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d: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 brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d: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, brla-gov/annual-contracts-syff-bi5d is just another Postgres schema.