Exploring data with Datasette

Datasette is “an open source multi-tool for exploring and publishing data”.

Installing Datasette locally

pip install datasette

Or if you prefer pipx:

pipx install datasette

Or Homebrew (on macOS):

brew install datasette

More installations options.

In Codespaces you should also install the datasette-codespaces plugin:

datasette install datasette-codespaces

Try a database: legislators.db

wget https://congress-legislators.datasettes.com/legislators.db

This is a database of US legislators, presidents and vice presidents.

You can explore it online at https://congress-legislators.datasettes.com/legislators

Open it in Datasette like this:

datasette legislators.db

We’ll follow this tutorial to explore Datasette’s features: Exploring a database with Datasette

Install some plugins

Datasette has over a hundred plugins: https://datasette.io/plugins

You can pip install them, but it’s better to use datasette install as that ensures they will go in the correct virtual environment, especially useful if you used pipx or Homebrew to install Datasette itself.

datasette install datasette-cluster-map

Now restart Datasette and visit the “offices” table to see the result.

You can review what plugins are installed with:

datasette plugins

Or by visiting the /-/plugins page in Datasette.

Plugins can be uninstalled with:

datasette uninstall datasette-cluster-map

Learning SQL with Datasette

The “✎ View and edit SQL” link is a quick way to start learning basic SQL queries.

We’ll follow this tutorial next: Learn SQL with Datasette