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 dob_permit_issuance table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a:latest"."dob_permit_issuance"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"lot", -- Tax lot assigned by Department of Finance
"gis_latitude",
"city", -- Owner’s House City
"owner_s_business_type", -- Owner's Business Type
"hic_license", -- HIC License
"issuance_date", -- Issuance Date
"permit_sequence__", -- Permit Sequence #
"oil_gas", -- Oil Gas
"gis_longitude",
"expiration_date", -- Expiration Date
"special_district_2", -- Special District 2
"self_cert", -- Self_Cert
"filing_status", -- Filing Status
"site_safety_mgr_s_first_name", -- Site Safety Mgr's First Name
"state", -- Owner’s House State
"block", -- Tax block assigned by Department of Finance
"gis_census_tract",
"permit_si_no",
"borough", -- 1= Manhattan, 2= Bronx, 3 = Brooklyn, 4 = Queens, 5 = Staten Island
"site_fill", -- Site Fill
"permit_type", -- Permit Type (DM-Demolition, EW-Equipment Work, PL-Plumbing, etc.) Complete List - http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/downloads/pdf/bisjobstatus.pdf
"bldg_type", -- 1-2-3 Family or Other
"house__", -- House Number of Residence or Commercial Property
"act_as_superintendent", -- Permittee Acts as Superintendent
"permit_status", -- Permit Status
"gis_nta_name",
"gis_council_district",
"dobrundate", -- Date when query is run and pushed to Open Data. Could be used to differentiate report dates.
"owner_s_phone__", -- Owner's Phone #
"owner_s_zip_code", -- Owner’s House Zip Code
"owner_s_last_name", -- Last Name of property owner
"owner_s_business_name", -- Business Name of Property Owner
"superintendent_business_name", -- Superintendent Business Name
"site_safety_mgr_business_name", -- Site Safety Mgr Business Name
"site_safety_mgr_s_last_name", -- Site Safety Mgr's Last Name
"permittee_s_license__", -- Permittee's License #
"permittee_s_phone__", -- Permittee's Phone #
"permittee_s_business_name", -- Permittee's Business Name
"permittee_s_last_name", -- Permittee's Last Name
"job_start_date", -- Job Start Date
"filing_date", -- Filing Date
"permit_subtype", -- Permit Subtype (Subset of Equipment Work Permit Type-- BL-Boiler, FA- Fire Alarm, Subset of Construction Equipment Permit Type-- CH-Chute, SF-Scaffold, etc.) Complete List - http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/downloads/pdf/bisjobstatus.pdf
"zip_code", -- Tax lot Zip Code
"job__", -- Number assigned by DOB to Job Filing
"bin__", -- Number assigned by City Planning to a specific building
"work_type", -- DOB Designated Work Types (PL-Plumbing, BL-Boiler, MH-Mechanical, OT-Other Constuction Equipment, etc.)
"owner_s_first_name", -- First Name of property owner
"superintendent_first___last_name", -- Superintendent First & Last Name
"permittee_s_license_type", -- Permittee's License Type
"permittee_s_first_name", -- Permittee's First Name
"community_board", -- 3-digit identifier: Borough code = first position, last 2 = community board
"job_type", -- Job Type, based on DOB Job Code (NB-New Building, A1, A2, A3- Alterations 1-3, SG-Sign, etc.)
"job_doc___", -- Document Number
"street_name", -- Street Name where Property is located
"owner_s_house_street_name", -- Owner's House Street Name
"owner_s_house__", -- Owner's House #
"non_profit", -- Non-Profit
"permittee_s_other_title", -- Permittee's Other Title
"special_district_1", -- Special District 1
"residential" -- Residential
FROM
"cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a:latest"."dob_permit_issuance"
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 cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a 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 cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a: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 cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9aCheckout 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 cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a 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 cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a: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 cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a: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, cityofnewyork-us/dob-permit-issuance-ipu4-2q9a is just another Postgres schema.