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 legacy_purchase_orders table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"brla-gov/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf:latest"."legacy_purchase_orders"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"dept_desc", -- Department name which the PO is for
"vend_state", --
"dt_qty_um", -- Code indicating Unit of Measure for this PO line item
"vend_minority_abbr", -- Code indicating minority classification of vendor
"vend_cont_name", --
"empl_inp", -- City-Parish employee who entered the PO
"po_num", --
"vend_addr_2", --
"po_type_desc", -- Description of the type of PO.
"po_category_desc", -- Description of the category of the PO.
"rec_type", -- H or D. H indicates record is a header record. D indicates a detail record. A PO will have 1 header record and at least 1 detail item
"dt_unit_cost", -- Unit Cost for this PO line item
"vend_zip", --
"req_num", -- Requisition number used for purchase
"purc_agent", -- Purchasing employee who is processing the PO
"po_stat", -- Code indicating the status of the PO
"po_stat_desc", -- Description of the status of the PO
"vend_cont_phone", --
"dt_stock_desc", -- Description of good or service being ordered on this PO line item
"deptno", -- Number of the department which the PO is for
"total_amt", -- Total amount of PO
"po_in_date", -- Date PO was entered into the system
"cstctr_desc", -- Description of Cost Center of the Department which the PO is for. This will often show which of the Department's Divisions issued the PO
"vchd_amt", -- Actual amount invoiced against PO. This amount may be less than the original PO amount
"vend", -- Internal id associated with the vendor
"vend_name_1", --
"vend_name_2", --
"vend_addr_1", --
"vend_cont_title", --
"vend_minority_desc", -- Description of minority classification of vendor
"total_items", -- Total number of detail items on PO. Each PO will have at least 1 detail item
"dt_seq", -- Sequential number of the detail PO line item
"dt_qty_ord", -- Quantity being ordered for this PO line item
"dt_tot_cost", -- Total (extended) cost of the PO line item being ordered
"vend_cont_ph_ext", --
"po_balance", -- Balance left on PO
"cstctr", -- Cost Center of the Department which the PO is for. This will often show which of the Department's Divisions issued the PO
"dt_um_desc", -- Description of Unit of Measure for this PO line item
"vend_city", --
"unique_id", -- Internal database id of record
"po_type_cd", -- Code indicating the type of PO. Goods (G), Services(S) or Both(B)
"po_category" -- Code indicating the category of the PO. Professional Services, Construction, State Contract, Sole Source, etc.
FROM
"brla-gov/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf:latest"."legacy_purchase_orders"
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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf 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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf: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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqfCheckout 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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of brla-gov/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf 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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf: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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf: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/legacy-purchase-orders-54bn-2sqf is just another Postgres schema.