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 texas_commission_on_environmental_quality_annual table in this repository, by referencing it like:
"texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack:latest"."texas_commission_on_environmental_quality_annual"or in a full query, like:
SELECT
":id", -- Socrata column ID
"form_submitter", -- Name of the company submitting the report.
"record_date", -- Record creation date.
"p_quantity_generated", -- Total quantity of waste generated in pounds (lbs). Note that the generator may have reported the quantities in either tons or kilograms, but the amounts have been converted to pounds.
"report_year", -- Calendar year of the annual waste report. The generator generated or handled the waste on the annual waste summary report during this year.
"form_registration", -- Generator’s solid waste registration number.
"waste_code", -- Texas waste code for the reported waste.
"receiver_comments", -- Comments from the generator about the waste.
"exemption_resolution_code", -- Code identifying the resolution of a fee exemption request.
"epa_id", -- EPA ID of the facility that handled the waste.
"acute_hazardous_waste_flag", -- Did the entity generate more than 2.2 lbs of hazardous in any one month period of the reporting year?
"p_quantity_handled", -- The amount of waste managed using the method in the management code column at the facility indicated in the Facility Number or EPA ID fields. Note that the generator may have reported the quantities in either tons or kilograms, but the amounts have been converted to pounds.
"facility_number", -- Displays either the receiver’s registration number, the state code if the receiver is located outside of Texas, or the generator’s waste management unit sequence number where the waste was handled.
"handling_code", -- The EPA code for the management method, also known as the System Type Code, describing how the waste was handled, treated, or disposed.
"exemption_code", -- Code identifying a fee exemption request.
"hazardous_waste_flag", -- Did the entity generate more than 1.1 tons (2200 lbs) of hazardous in any one month period of the reporting year?
"reporting_method", -- Method of reporting the waste either via paper or electronic (through the State of Texas Environmental Electronic Reporting System or STEERS).
"report_required" -- When populated with a checkmark, indicates that the generator did not need to provide an itemized report of their waste generation because they generated less than 2000 pounds of non-acute hazardous waste, 2.2 pounds of acute hazardous waste, and 2000 pounds of Class 1 Industrial waste.
FROM
"texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack:latest"."texas_commission_on_environmental_quality_annual"
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 texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack 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 texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack: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 texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ackCheckout 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 texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack:latestThis will download all the objects for the latest tag of texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack 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 texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack: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 texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack: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, texas-gov/texas-commission-on-environmental-quality-annual-79s2-9ack is just another Postgres schema.