Power tools
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csvjoin: merging related data
=============================

One of the most common operations that we need to perform on data is
“joining” it to other, related data. For instance, given a dataset
about equipment supplied to counties in Nebraska, one might reasonably
want to merge that with a dataset containing the population of each
county. csvjoin allows us to take two those two datasets (equipment
and population) and merge them, much like you might do with a SQL
"JOIN" query. In order to demonstrate this, let’s grab a second
dataset:

   curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wireservice/csvkit/master/examples/realdata/acs2012_5yr_population.csv

Now let’s see what’s in there:

   csvstat acs2012_5yr_population.csv

   1. fips
     Number
     Nulls: False
     Min: 31001
     Max: 31185
     Sum: 2891649
     Mean: 31093
     Median: 31093
     Standard Deviation: 53.98147830506311726900562525
     Unique values: 93
     5 most frequent values:
         31001:        1
         31003:        1
         31005:        1
         31007:        1
         31009:        1
   2. name
     Text
     Nulls: False
     Unique values: 93
     Max length: 23
     5 most frequent values:
         Adams County, NE:     1
         Antelope County, NE:  1
         Arthur County, NE:    1
         Banner County, NE:    1
         Blaine County, NE:    1
   3. total_population
     Number
     Nulls: False
     Min: 348
     Max: 518271
     Sum: 1827306
     Mean: 19648.45161290322580645161290
     Median: 6294
     Standard Deviation: 62501.00530730896711321285542
     Unique values: 93
     5 most frequent values:
         31299:        1
         6655: 1
         490:  1
         778:  1
         584:  1
   4. margin_of_error
     Number
     Nulls: False
     Min: 0
     Max: 115
     Sum: 1800
     Mean: 19.35483870967741935483870968
     Median: 0
     Standard Deviation: 37.89707031274211909117708454
     Unique values: 15
     5 most frequent values:
         0:    73
         73:   2
         114:  2
         97:   2
         99:   2

   Row count: 93

As you can see, this data file contains population estimates for each
county in Nebraska from the 2012 5-year ACS estimates. This data was
retrieved from Census Reporter and reformatted slightly for this
example. Let’s join it to our equipment data:

   csvjoin -c fips data.csv acs2012_5yr_population.csv > joined.csv

Since both files contain a fips column, we can use that to join the
two. In our output you should see the population data appended at the
end of each row of data. Let’s combine this with what we’ve learned
before to answer the question “What was the lowest population county
to receive equipment?”:

   csvcut -c county,item_name,total_population joined.csv | csvsort -c total_population | csvlook | head

   | county     | item_name                                                      | total_population |
   | ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------- |
   | MCPHERSON  | RIFLE,5.56 MILLIMETER                                          |              348 |
   | WHEELER    | RIFLE,5.56 MILLIMETER                                          |              725 |
   | GREELEY    | RIFLE,7.62 MILLIMETER                                          |            2,515 |
   | GREELEY    | RIFLE,7.62 MILLIMETER                                          |            2,515 |
   | GREELEY    | RIFLE,7.62 MILLIMETER                                          |            2,515 |
   | NANCE      | RIFLE,5.56 MILLIMETER                                          |            3,730 |
   | NANCE      | RIFLE,7.62 MILLIMETER                                          |            3,730 |
   | NANCE      | RIFLE,7.62 MILLIMETER                                          |            3,730 |

Two counties with fewer than one-thousand residents were the
recipients of 5.56 millimeter assault rifles. This simple example
demonstrates the power of joining datasets. Although SQL will always
be a more flexible option, "csvjoin" will often get you where you need
to go faster.


csvstack: combining subsets
===========================

Frequently large datasets are distributed in many small files. At some
point you will probably want to merge those files for bulk analysis.
csvstack allows you to “stack” the rows from CSV files with the same
columns (and identical column names). To demonstrate, let’s imagine
we’ve decided that Nebraska and Kansas form a “region” and that it
would be useful to analyze them in a single dataset. Let’s grab the
Kansas data:

   curl -L -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/wireservice/csvkit/master/examples/realdata/ks_1033_data.csv

Back in Getting started, we had used in2csv to convert our Nebraska
data from XLSX to CSV. However, we named our output *data.csv* for
simplicity at the time. Now that we are going to be stacking multiple
states, we should re-convert our Nebraska data using a file naming
convention matching our Kansas data:

   in2csv ne_1033_data.xlsx > ne_1033_data.csv

Now let’s stack these two data files:

   csvstack ne_1033_data.csv ks_1033_data.csv > region.csv

Using csvstat we can see that our "region.csv" contains both datasets:

   csvstat -c state,acquisition_cost region.csv

   1. state
     Text
     Nulls: False
     Values: NE, KS
     Max length: 2
     5 most frequent values:
         KS:   1575
         NE:   1036
   8. acquisition_cost
     Number
     Nulls: False
     Min: 0.0
     Max: 658000
     Sum: 9440445.91
     Mean: 3615.643780160857908847184987
     Median: 138
     Standard Deviation: 23730.63142202547205726466358
     Unique values: 127
     5 most frequent values:
         120.0:        649
         499.0:        449
         138.0:        311
         6800.0:       304
         58.71:        218

   Row count: 2611

If you supply the "-g" flag then "csvstack" can also add a “grouping
column” to each row, so that you can tell which file each row came
from. In this case we don’t need this, but you can imagine a situation
in which instead of having a "county" column each of this datasets had
simply been named "nebraska.csv" and "kansas.csv". In that case, using
a grouping column would prevent us from losing information when we
stacked them.


csvsql and sql2csv: ultimate power
==================================

Sometimes (almost always), the command-line isn’t enough. It would be
crazy to try to do all your analysis using command-line tools. Often
times, the correct tool for data analysis is SQL. csvsql and sql2csv
form a bridge that eases migrating your data into and out of a SQL
database. For smaller datasets "csvsql" can also leverage sqlite to
allow execution of ad hoc SQL queries without ever touching a
database.

By default, "csvsql" will generate a create table statement for your
data. You can specify what sort of database you are using with the
"-i" flag:

   csvsql -i sqlite joined.csv

   CREATE TABLE joined (
           state VARCHAR(2) NOT NULL,
           county VARCHAR(10) NOT NULL,
           fips DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           nsn VARCHAR(16) NOT NULL,
           item_name VARCHAR(62),
           quantity DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           ui VARCHAR(7) NOT NULL,
           acquisition_cost DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           total_cost DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           ship_date DATE NOT NULL,
           federal_supply_category DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           federal_supply_category_name VARCHAR(35) NOT NULL,
           federal_supply_class DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           federal_supply_class_name VARCHAR(63) NOT NULL,
           name VARCHAR(21) NOT NULL,
           total_population DECIMAL NOT NULL,
           margin_of_error DECIMAL NOT NULL
   );

Here we have the sqlite “create table” statement for our joined data.
You’ll see that, like "csvstat", "csvsql" has done its best to infer
the column types.

Often you won’t care about storing the SQL statements locally. You can
also use "csvsql" to create the table directly in the database on your
local machine. If you add the "--insert" option the data will also be
imported:

   csvsql --db sqlite:///leso.db --insert joined.csv

How can we check that our data was imported successfully? We could use
the sqlite command-line interface, but rather than worry about the
specifics of another tool, we can also use "sql2csv":

   sql2csv --db sqlite:///leso.db --query "select * from joined"

Note that the "--query" parameter to "sql2csv" accepts any SQL query.
For example, to export Douglas county from the "joined" table from our
sqlite database, we would run:

   sql2csv --db sqlite:///leso.db --query "select * from joined where county='DOUGLAS';" > douglas.csv

Sometimes, if you will only be running a single query, even
constructing the database is a waste of time. For that case, you can
actually skip the database entirely and "csvsql" will create one in
memory for you:

   csvsql --query "select county,item_name from joined where quantity > 5;" joined.csv | csvlook

SQL queries directly on CSVs! Keep in mind when using this that you
are loading the entire dataset into an in-memory database, so it is
likely to be very slow for large datasets.


Summing up
==========

"csvjoin", "csvstack", "csvsql" and "sql2csv" represent the power
tools of csvkit. Using these tools can vastly simplify processes that
would otherwise require moving data between other systems. But what
about cases where these tools still don’t cut it? What if you need to
move your data onto the web or into a legacy database system? We’ve
got a few solutions for those problems in our final section, Going
elsewhere with your data.
