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 facilities_licensed_by_the_department_of_motor table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2:latest"."facilities_licensed_by_the_department_of_motor"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"owner_name", -- The name of the facility owner. This contains only the first 20 characters.
"last_renewal_date", -- The date of the most recent activity on the license renewal for the business type.
"business_type", -- The code representing a single business license that the facility has. DIA = Drive-in Appraiser; DIS = Dismantler; DLB = Boat Dealer; DLN = New Car Dealer; *DLS = Snowmobile Dealer; DLU = Used Car Dealer; DLW = Wholesale Dealer; ISD = Dealer Inspection Station; ISF = Fleet Inspection Station; ISP = Public Inspection Station; IVC = Itinerant Vehicle; MCC = Mobile Car Crusher; RS = Repair Shop; RSB = Repair Shop Body; SCC = Scrap Collector; SCP = Scrap Processor; SLP = Salvage Pool; TRS = Transporter; YTB = Yacht Broker; ATV = ATV only dealership; ABK = Automobile Broker. *The count for DLN (New Car Dealer) also includes fewer than 20 Qualified Car Dealers (DLQ). Unlike a DLN, a DLQ may sell new cars WITHOUT a franchise agreement with a manufacturer. This is because DLQs pre-dated passage of the Franchised Motor Vehicle Dealer Act and were grandfathered in when it was passed.
"owner_name_overflow", -- The additional overflow of the owner name. Up to an additional 20 characters of the owner name.
"facility_county", -- The 4 character alpha code that identifies the NYS county that the facility is located in. (First 4 characters of the full county name; see table in the attached data dictionary).
"facility_street", -- The street address of facility location.
"facility_name_overflow", -- The additional overflow of the facility name. Up to an additional 20 characters of the facility name.
"facility_name", -- The name of the facility, This contains only the first 20 characters of the facility name.
"facility", -- The unique numeric identifier assigned to a facility by DMV.
"facility_state", -- State where facility is located. This is a 2 character field.
"expiration_date", -- The date (month and year) when the license expires. (Always expire at end of the month).
"origional_issuance_date", -- The original application date or approval date for the business type.
"facility_zip_code", -- The 5 digit numeric zip code of the facility location.
"facility_city", -- The city where facility is located.
"georeference" -- Open Data/Socrata-generated geocoding information from supplied address components.
FROM
"ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2:latest"."facilities_licensed_by_the_department_of_motor"
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 ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2 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 ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2: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 ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2Checkout 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 ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2 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 ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2: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 ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2: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, ny-gov/facilities-licensed-by-the-department-of-motor-nhjr-rpi2 is just another Postgres schema.