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 tuition_assistance_program_tap_recipients_dollars table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"ny-gov/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45:latest"."tuition_assistance_program_tap_recipients_dollars"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"income_by_1_000_range", -- When performing data analysis, one of three income ranges can be selected. The $1,000 income range is the lowest level of granularity that is available in this dataset. Recipient New York State Net Taxable Income by Category
"level", -- U = Undergraduate G = Graduate
"tap_award_schedule", -- There are 3 awards schedules: Dependent Schedule, Independent Schedule, or Married No Dependents Schedule
"tap_degree_or_nondegree", -- Degree = Program of study is classified as degree granting Non Degree = Program of study is classified as non degree
"sector_type", -- Type of Institution is either Public or Private.
"tap_financial_status", -- Financial Status is either Financial_Dependent or Financial_Independent
"income_by_10_000_range", -- When performing data analysis, one of three income ranges can be selected. The $10,000 income range is the highest level of granularity that is available in this dataset. Recipient New York State Net Taxable Income by Category
"academic_year", -- Academic Year is from July 1 through June 30.
"tap_level_of_study", -- Student’s Level of Study: 2 yr Undergrad = Undergraduate 2 Year Program of Study 4 yr Undergrad = Undergraduate 4 Year Program of Study 5 yr Undergrad = Approved Undergraduate 5 Year Program of Study STAP = Supplemental Tuition Assistance Program (authorized additional aid for remedial courses) Grad = Graduate Level Program of Study
"tap_sector_group", -- Sector Group of Institution: 1-CUNY SR = CUNY Senior Colleges 2-CUNY CC = CUNY Community Colleges 3-SUNY SO = SUNY State Operated 4-SUNY CC = SUNY Community Colleges 5-INDEPENDENT = Independent Colleges 6-BUS. DEGREE = Business Degree Granting Institutions 7-BUS. NON-DEG = Non-Degree Business Schools 8-OTHER = All Other Institutions 9-CHAPTER XXII = Chapter XXII TAP Schools
"recipient_age_group", -- Age of student as of July 1 start of academic year:
"tap_schedule_letter", -- Refer to Tuition Assistance Program award schedule documentation. The link is provided in the Additional Resources section after selecting the About tab.
"income_by_5_000_range", -- When performing data analysis, one of three income ranges can be selected. The $5,000 income range is the middle level of granularity that is available in this dataset. Recipient New York State Net Taxable Income by Category:
"tap_recipient_headcount", -- Number of recipients as measured by students receiving at least one term award during the academic year.
"tap_recipient_ftes", -- Number of recipients as measured by academic year Full-Time Equivalents: Full Time Equivalent is a unit that indicates the enrollment of a student in credit-bearing courses in a way that makes it comparable across contexts. An FTE of 1.0 means that the person is equivalent to 1 full-time student, while an FTE of 0.5 signals that a student is enrolled half-time.
"tap_recipient_dollars" -- Total TAP award dollars provided on behalf of TAP recipients attending an Institution.
FROM
"ny-gov/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45:latest"."tuition_assistance_program_tap_recipients_dollars"
LIMIT 100;Connecting to the DDN is easy. All you need is an existing SQL client that can connect to Postgres. As long as you have a SQL client ready, you'll be able to query ny-gov/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45 with SQL in under 60 seconds.
Query Your Local Engine
bash -c "$(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/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45: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/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45Checkout 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/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of ny-gov/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45 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/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45: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/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45: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/tuition-assistance-program-tap-recipients-dollars-2t78-bs45 is just another Postgres schema.