databases

The Global Airport Database

The Global Airport Database is a collection of data about all (???) airports in the world, big and small. It covers a total of 9,300 airports worldwide.

That’s pretty interesting. For example, how many airports do you think there are in Cyprus? Obviously, there is the Larnaca International Airport and Paphos International Airport. Then, there is one in Nicosia, which is not functioning since the island was divided. And there is one in Acrotiri on the British military base. Four, right? Well, the Global Airport Database has a total of 7 (!!!) entries for the country of Cyprus:

LCCC:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA ACC/FIC:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCLK:LCA:LARNACA:LARNACA:CYPRUS:034:052:030:N:033:037:029:E:00003:34.875:33.625
LCNC:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCPH:PFO:PAPHOS INTERNATIONAL:PAPHOS:CYPRUS:034:043:004:N:032:029:008:E:00013:34.718:32.486
LCRA:AKT:AKROTIRI:AKROTIRI:CYPRUS:034:035:025:N:032:059:016:E:00024:34.590:32.988
LCRO:N/A:N/A:EPISKOPI:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000
LCRR:N/A:N/A:NICOSIA:CYPRUS:000:000:000:U:000:000:000:U:00000:0.000:0.000

Larnaca and Paphos are there. The Akrotiri one is there too. Then we have 3 records for Nicosia. And one more for Episkopi. Hmm …

Querying CSV with SQL

Excel is not the only tool available when it comes working with CSV files. I have previously mentioned TextQL (here). Yesterday, I tried another tool, called “q”. But since searching for “q” is not very effective, it’s also known “q text as data“.

For those using Fedora, you can install it by simply running “dnf install q-text-as-data“. Here’s an example of how it works:

$ q-text-as-data -H -d ',' "SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT(Project)) FROM deploy.csv"
95

In the above example, I’m querying the deploy.csv file, which is in the current folder. q supports both command and tab separated values, so I’m helping it out with the “-d ‘,’” parameter, saying that this particular one is a CSV. “-H” tells q that the first row in this file is used for headers. CSV files with headers are more convenient, as you can use headers as column names, instead of numerical indexes.

MySQL vs. MariaDB: Reality Check

Percona Database Performance Blog runs this post – MySQL vs. MariaDB: Reality Check – comparing the MySQL, MariaDB and the Percona Server for MySQL. I think that most people using MySQL or MariaDB today consider them to be pretty much identical (a fork for legal reasons or something along those lines). This blog post shows that there are quite a few significant differences.

Database Popularity Index

Have a look at Red9’s Database Popularity Index, which is updated now on a monthly basis. Last year I blogged about a similar study.

One thing that is still mind-boggling to me is the total number of different database engines – over 300! I know there is a constant need for better and more powerful databases, but 300? Sounds like too much to choose from.

One other thing that I find slightly surprising is the popularity of the Microsoft Access. Really? With so much to choose from, people still stay with Access? What am I not getting here?

Grakn and Graql – a database for AI

From the grakn.ai website:

Grakn is a distributed hyper-relational database for knowledge-oriented systems. Grakn enables machines to manage complex data that serves as a knowledge base for cognitive/AI systems.

Graql is Grakn’s reasoning (through OLTP) and analytics (through OLAP) query language. Graql is a much higher level abstraction over traditional query language – SQL, NoSQL, or Graphs.