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
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