datasette/README.md

# Datasette

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*A tool for exploring and publishing data*

Datasette provides an instant, read-only JSON API for any SQLite database. It also provides tools  for packaging the database up as a Docker container and deploying that container to hosting providers such as [Zeit Now](https://zeit.co/now).

Got CSV data? Use [csvs-to-sqlite](https://github.com/simonw/csvs-to-sqlite) to convert them to SQLite, then publish them with Datasette. Or try [Datasette Publish](https://publish.datasettes.com), a web app that lets you upload CSV data and deploy it using Datasette without needing to install any software.

* Documentation: http://datasette.readthedocs.io/
* Examples: https://github.com/simonw/datasette/wiki/Datasettes
* Live demo of current master: https://latest.datasette.io/

## News

* 3rd October 2018: [The interesting ideas in Datasette](https://simonwillison.net/2018/Oct/4/datasette-ideas/) - a write-up of some of the less obvious interesting ideas embedded in the Datasette project.
* 19th September 2018: [Datasette 0.25](http://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html#v0-25) - New plugin hooks, improved database view support and an easier way to use more recent versions of SQLite.
* 23rd July 2018: [Datasette 0.24](http://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html#v0-24) - a number of small new features
* 29th June 2018: [datasette-vega](https://github.com/simonw/datasette-vega), a new plugin for visualizing data as bar, line or scatter charts
* 21st June 2018: [Datasette 0.23.1](http://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html#v0-23-1) - minor bug fixes
* 18th June 2018: [Datasette 0.23: CSV, SpatiaLite and more](http://datasette.readthedocs.io/en/latest/changelog.html#v0-23) - CSV export, foreign key expansion in JSON and CSV, new config options, improved support for SpatiaLite and a bunch of other improvements
* 23rd May 2018: [Datasette 0.22.1 bugfix](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.22.1) plus we now use [versioneer](https://github.com/warner/python-versioneer)
* 20th May 2018: [Datasette 0.22: Datasette Facets](https://simonwillison.net/2018/May/20/datasette-facets)
* 5th May 2018: [Datasette 0.21: New _shape=, new _size=, search within columns](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.21)
* 25th April 2018: [Exploring the UK Register of Members Interests with SQL and Datasette](https://simonwillison.net/2018/Apr/25/register-members-interests/) - a tutorial describing how [register-of-members-interests.datasettes.com](https://register-of-members-interests.datasettes.com/) was built ([source code here](https://github.com/simonw/register-of-members-interests))
* 20th April 2018: [Datasette plugins, and building a clustered map visualization](https://simonwillison.net/2018/Apr/20/datasette-plugins/) - introducing Datasette's new plugin system and [datasette-cluster-map](https://pypi.org/project/datasette-cluster-map/), a plugin for visualizing data on a map
* 20th April 2018: [Datasette 0.20: static assets and templates for plugins](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.20)
* 16th April 2018: [Datasette 0.19: plugins preview](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.19)
* 14th April 2018: [Datasette 0.18: units](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.18)
* 9th April 2018: [Datasette 0.15: sort by column](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.15)
* 28th March 2018: [Baltimore Sun Public Salary Records](https://simonwillison.net/2018/Mar/28/datasette-in-the-wild/) - a data journalism project from the Baltimore Sun powered by Datasette - source code [is available here](https://github.com/baltimore-sun-data/salaries-datasette)
* 27th March 2018: [Cloud-first: Rapid webapp deployment using containers](https://wwwf.imperial.ac.uk/blog/research-software-engineering/2018/03/27/cloud-first-rapid-webapp-deployment-using-containers/) - a tutorial covering deploying Datasette using Microsoft Azure by the Research Software Engineering team at Imperial College London
* 28th January 2018: [Analyzing my Twitter followers with Datasette](https://simonwillison.net/2018/Jan/28/analyzing-my-twitter-followers/) - a tutorial on using Datasette to analyze follower data pulled from the Twitter API
* 17th January 2018: [Datasette Publish: a web app for publishing CSV files as an online database](https://simonwillison.net/2018/Jan/17/datasette-publish/)
* 12th December 2017: [Building a location to time zone API with SpatiaLite, OpenStreetMap and Datasette](https://simonwillison.net/2017/Dec/12/building-a-location-time-zone-api/)
* 9th December 2017: [Datasette 0.14: customization edition](https://github.com/simonw/datasette/releases/tag/0.14)
* 25th November 2017: [New in Datasette: filters, foreign keys and search](https://simonwillison.net/2017/Nov/25/new-in-datasette/)
* 13th November 2017: [Datasette: instantly create and publish an API for your SQLite databases](https://simonwillison.net/2017/Nov/13/datasette/)

## Installation

    pip3 install datasette

Datasette requires Python 3.5 or higher.

## Basic usage

    datasette serve path/to/database.db

This will start a web server on port 8001 - visit http://localhost:8001/ to access the web interface.

`serve` is the default subcommand, you can omit it if you like.

Use Chrome on OS X? You can run datasette against your browser history like so:

     datasette ~/Library/Application\ Support/Google/Chrome/Default/History

Now visiting http://localhost:8001/History/downloads will show you a web interface to browse your downloads data:

![Downloads table rendered by datasette](https://static.simonwillison.net/static/2017/datasette-downloads.png)

http://localhost:8001/History/downloads.json will return that data as JSON:

    {
        "database": "History",
        "columns": [
            "id",
            "current_path",
            "target_path",
            "start_time",
            "received_bytes",
            "total_bytes",
            ...
        ],
        "table_rows_count": 576,
        "rows": [
            [
                1,
                "/Users/simonw/Downloads/DropboxInstaller.dmg",
                "/Users/simonw/Downloads/DropboxInstaller.dmg",
                13097290269022132,
                626688,
                0,
                ...
            ]
        ]
    }


http://localhost:8001/History/downloads.json?_shape=objects will return that data as JSON in a more convenient but less efficient format:

    {
        ...
        "rows": [
            {
                "start_time": 13097290269022132,
                "interrupt_reason": 0,
                "hash": "",
                "id": 1,
                "site_url": "",
                "referrer": "https://www.dropbox.com/downloading?src=index",
                ...
            }
        ]
    }

## datasette serve options

    $ datasette serve --help
    Usage: datasette serve [OPTIONS] [FILES]...

      Serve up specified SQLite database files with a web UI

    Options:
      -h, --host TEXT              host for server, defaults to 127.0.0.1
      -p, --port INTEGER           port for server, defaults to 8001
      --debug                      Enable debug mode - useful for development
      --reload                     Automatically reload if code change detected -
                                   useful for development
      --cors                       Enable CORS by serving Access-Control-Allow-
                                   Origin: *
      --load-extension PATH        Path to a SQLite extension to load
      --inspect-file TEXT          Path to JSON file created using "datasette
                                   inspect"
      -m, --metadata FILENAME      Path to JSON file containing license/source
                                   metadata
      --template-dir DIRECTORY     Path to directory containing custom templates
      --plugins-dir DIRECTORY      Path to directory containing custom plugins
      --static STATIC MOUNT        mountpoint:path-to-directory for serving static
                                   files
      --config CONFIG              Set config option using configname:value
                                   datasette.readthedocs.io/en/latest/config.html
      --help-config                Show available config options
      --help                       Show this message and exit.

## metadata.json

If you want to include licensing and source information in the generated datasette website you can do so using a JSON file that looks something like this:

    {
        "title": "Five Thirty Eight",
        "license": "CC Attribution 4.0 License",
        "license_url": "http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
        "source": "fivethirtyeight/data on GitHub",
        "source_url": "https://github.com/fivethirtyeight/data"
    }

The license and source information will be displayed on the index page and in the footer. They will also be included in the JSON produced by the API.

## datasette publish

If you have [Zeit Now](https://zeit.co/now) or [Heroku](https://heroku.com/) configured, datasette can deploy one or more SQLite databases to the internet with a single command:

    datasette publish now database.db

Or:

    datasette publish heroku database.db

This will create a docker image containing both the datasette application and the specified SQLite database files. It will then deploy that image to Zeit Now or Heroku and give you a URL to access the API.

    $ datasette publish --help
    Usage: datasette publish [OPTIONS] PUBLISHER [FILES]...

      Publish specified SQLite database files to the internet along with a
      datasette API.

      Options for PUBLISHER:     * 'now' - You must have Zeit Now installed:
      https://zeit.co/now     * 'heroku' - You must have Heroku installed:
      https://cli.heroku.com/

      Example usage: datasette publish now my-database.db

    Options:
      -n, --name TEXT           Application name to use when deploying to Now
                                (ignored for Heroku)
      -m, --metadata FILENAME   Path to JSON file containing metadata to publish
      --extra-options TEXT      Extra options to pass to datasette serve
      --force                   Pass --force option to now
      --branch TEXT             Install datasette from a GitHub branch e.g. master
      --token TEXT              Auth token to use for deploy (Now only)
      --template-dir DIRECTORY  Path to directory containing custom templates
      --plugins-dir DIRECTORY   Path to directory containing custom plugins
      --static STATIC MOUNT     mountpoint:path-to-directory for serving static
                                files
      --install TEXT            Additional packages (e.g. plugins) to install
      --spatialite              Enable SpatialLite extension
      --version-note TEXT       Additional note to show on /-/versions
      --title TEXT              Title for metadata
      --license TEXT            License label for metadata
      --license_url TEXT        License URL for metadata
      --source TEXT             Source label for metadata
      --source_url TEXT         Source URL for metadata
      --help                    Show this message and exit.

## datasette package

If you have docker installed you can use `datasette package` to create a new Docker image in your local repository containing the datasette app and selected SQLite databases:

    $ datasette package --help
    Usage: datasette package [OPTIONS] FILES...

      Package specified SQLite files into a new datasette Docker container

    Options:
      -t, --tag TEXT            Name for the resulting Docker container, can
                                optionally use name:tag format
      -m, --metadata FILENAME   Path to JSON file containing metadata to publish
      --extra-options TEXT      Extra options to pass to datasette serve
      --branch TEXT             Install datasette from a GitHub branch e.g. master
      --template-dir DIRECTORY  Path to directory containing custom templates
      --plugins-dir DIRECTORY   Path to directory containing custom plugins
      --static STATIC MOUNT     mountpoint:path-to-directory for serving static
                                files
      --install TEXT            Additional packages (e.g. plugins) to install
      --spatialite              Enable SpatialLite extension
      --version-note TEXT       Additional note to show on /-/versions
      --title TEXT              Title for metadata
      --license TEXT            License label for metadata
      --license_url TEXT        License URL for metadata
      --source TEXT             Source label for metadata
      --source_url TEXT         Source URL for metadata
      --help                    Show this message and exit.

Both publish and package accept an `extra_options` argument option, which will affect how the resulting application is executed. For example, say you want to increase the SQL time limit for a particular container:

    datasette package parlgov.db \
        --extra-options="--config sql_time_limit_ms:2500 --config default_page_size:10"

The resulting container will run the application with those options.

Here's example output for the package command:

    $ datasette package parlgov.db --extra-options="--config sql_time_limit_ms:2500"
    Sending build context to Docker daemon  4.459MB
    Step 1/7 : FROM python:3
     ---> 79e1dc9af1c1
    Step 2/7 : COPY . /app
     ---> Using cache
     ---> cd4ec67de656
    Step 3/7 : WORKDIR /app
     ---> Using cache
     ---> 139699e91621
    Step 4/7 : RUN pip install datasette
     ---> Using cache
     ---> 340efa82bfd7
    Step 5/7 : RUN datasette inspect parlgov.db --inspect-file inspect-data.json
     ---> Using cache
     ---> 5fddbe990314
    Step 6/7 : EXPOSE 8001
     ---> Using cache
     ---> 8e83844b0fed
    Step 7/7 : CMD datasette serve parlgov.db --port 8001 --inspect-file inspect-data.json --config sql_time_limit_ms:2500
     ---> Using cache
     ---> 1bd380ea8af3
    Successfully built 1bd380ea8af3

You can now run the resulting container like so:

    docker run -p 8081:8001 1bd380ea8af3

This exposes port 8001 inside the container as port 8081 on your host machine, so you can access the application at http://localhost:8081/