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| 1 | 1 | Datasette | An open source multi-tool for exploring and publishing data Datasette is a tool for exploring and publishing data. It helps people take data of any shape or size and publish that as an interactive, explorable website and accompanying API. Datasette is aimed at data journalists, museum curators, archivists, local governments and anyone else who has data that they wish to share with the world. It is part of a wider ecosystem of tools and plugins dedicated to making working with structured data as productive as possible. Explore a demo , watch a presentation about the project . Interested in learning Datasette? Start with the official tutorials . Support questions, feedback? Join the Datasette Discord . | 92 | |
| 2 | 2 | Contents | Getting started Play with a live demo Follow a tutorial Datasette in your browser with Datasette Lite Try Datasette without installing anything with Codespaces Using Datasette on your own computer Installation Basic installation Datasette Desktop for Mac Using Homebrew Using pip Advanced installation options Using pipx Using Docker A note about extensions Configuration Configuration via the command-line datasette.yaml reference Settings Plugin configuration Permissions configuration Canned queries configuration Custom CSS and JavaScript The Datasette Ecosystem sqlite-utils Dogsheep CLI reference datasette --help datasette serve Environment variables datasette --get datasette serve --help-settings datasette plugins datasette install datasette uninstall datasette publish datasette publish cloudrun datasette publish heroku datasette package datasette inspect datasette create-token Pages and API endpoints Top-level index Database Hidden tables Queries Table Row Schemas Instance schema Database schema Table schema Publishing data datasette publish Publishing to Google Cloud Run Publishing to Heroku Publishing to Vercel Publishing to Fly Custom metadata and plugins datasette package Deploying Datasette Deployment fundamentals Running Datasette using systemd Running Datasette using OpenRC Deploying using buildpacks Running Datasette behind a proxy Nginx proxy configuration Apache proxy configuration JSON API Default representation Different shapes Pagination Special JSON arguments Table arguments Column filter arguments Special table arguments Expanding foreign key references Discovering the JSON for a page Enabling CORS The JSON write API Inserting rows Upserting rows Updating a row Deleting a row Creating a table Creating a table from example data Dropping tables Running SQL queries Named parameters Views Canned queries Canned query parameters Additional canned query options Writable canned queries Magic parameters JSON API for writable canned queries Pagination Cross-database queries Authentication and permissions A… | 92 | |
| 3 | 3 | Running SQL queries | Datasette treats SQLite database files as read-only and immutable. This means it is not possible to execute INSERT or UPDATE statements using Datasette, which allows us to expose SELECT statements to the outside world without needing to worry about SQL injection attacks. The easiest way to execute custom SQL against Datasette is through the web UI. The database index page includes a SQL editor that lets you run any SELECT query you like. You can also construct queries using the filter interface on the tables page, then click "View and edit SQL" to open that query in the custom SQL editor. Note that this interface is only available if the execute-sql permission is allowed. See Controlling the ability to execute arbitrary SQL . Any Datasette SQL query is reflected in the URL of the page, allowing you to bookmark them, share them with others and navigate through previous queries using your browser back button. You can also retrieve the results of any query as JSON by adding .json to the base URL. | 92 | |
| 4 | 4 | Named parameters | Datasette has special support for SQLite named parameters. Consider a SQL query like this: select * from Street_Tree_List where "PermitNotes" like :notes and "qSpecies" = :species If you execute this query using the custom query editor, Datasette will extract the two named parameters and use them to construct form fields for you to provide values. You can also provide values for these fields by constructing a URL: /mydatabase?sql=select...&species=44 SQLite string escaping rules will be applied to values passed using named parameters - they will be wrapped in quotes and their content will be correctly escaped. Values from named parameters are treated as SQLite strings. If you need to perform numeric comparisons on them you should cast them to an integer or float first using cast(:name as integer) or cast(:name as real) , for example: select * from Street_Tree_List where latitude > cast(:min_latitude as real) and latitude < cast(:max_latitude as real) Datasette disallows custom SQL queries containing the string PRAGMA (with a small number of exceptions ) as SQLite pragma statements can be used to change database settings at runtime. If you need to include the string "pragma" in a query you can do so safely using a named parameter. | 92 | |
| 5 | 5 | Views | If you want to bundle some pre-written SQL queries with your Datasette-hosted database you can do so in two ways. The first is to include SQL views in your database - Datasette will then list those views on your database index page. The quickest way to create views is with the SQLite command-line interface: sqlite3 sf-trees.db SQLite version 3.19.3 2017-06-27 16:48:08 Enter ".help" for usage hints. sqlite> CREATE VIEW demo_view AS select qSpecies from Street_Tree_List; <CTRL+D> You can also use the sqlite-utils tool to create a view : sqlite-utils create-view sf-trees.db demo_view "select qSpecies from Street_Tree_List" | 92 | |
| 6 | 6 | Canned queries | As an alternative to adding views to your database, you can define canned queries inside your datasette.yaml file. Here's an example: [[[cog from metadata_doc import config_example, config_example config_example(cog, { "databases": { "sf-trees": { "queries": { "just_species": { "sql": "select qSpecies from Street_Tree_List" } } } } }) ]]] [[[end]]] Then run Datasette like this: datasette sf-trees.db -m metadata.json Each canned query will be listed on the database index page, and will also get its own URL at: /database-name/canned-query-name For the above example, that URL would be: /sf-trees/just_species You can optionally include "title" and "description" keys to show a title and description on the canned query page. As with regular table metadata you can alternatively specify "description_html" to have your description rendered as HTML (rather than having HTML special characters escaped). | 92 | |
| 7 | 7 | Canned query parameters | Canned queries support named parameters, so if you include those in the SQL you will then be able to enter them using the form fields on the canned query page or by adding them to the URL. This means canned queries can be used to create custom JSON APIs based on a carefully designed SQL statement. Here's an example of a canned query with a named parameter: select neighborhood, facet_cities.name, state from facetable join facet_cities on facetable.city_id = facet_cities.id where neighborhood like '%' || :text || '%' order by neighborhood; In the canned query configuration looks like this: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: fixtures: queries: neighborhood_search: title: Search neighborhoods sql: |- select neighborhood, facet_cities.name, state from facetable join facet_cities on facetable.city_id = facet_cities.id where neighborhood like '%' || :text || '%' order by neighborhood """) ]]] [[[end]]] Note that we are using SQLite string concatenation here - the || operator - to add wildcard % characters to the string provided by the user. You can try this canned query out here: https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/neighborhood_search?text=town In this example the :text named parameter is automatically extracted from the query using a regular expression. You can alternatively provide an explicit list of named parameters using the "params" key, like this: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: fixtures: queries: neighborhood_search: title: Search neighborhoods params: - text sql: |- select neighborhood, facet_cities.name, state from facetable join facet_cities on facetable.city_id = facet_cities.id where neighborhood like … | 92 | |
| 8 | 8 | Additional canned query options | Additional options can be specified for canned queries in the YAML or JSON configuration. | 92 | |
| 9 | 9 | hide_sql | Canned queries default to displaying their SQL query at the top of the page. If the query is extremely long you may want to hide it by default, with a "show" link that can be used to make it visible. Add the "hide_sql": true option to hide the SQL query by default. | 92 | |
| 10 | 10 | fragment | Some plugins, such as datasette-vega , can be configured by including additional data in the fragment hash of the URL - the bit that comes after a # symbol. You can set a default fragment hash that will be included in the link to the canned query from the database index page using the "fragment" key. This example demonstrates both fragment and hide_sql : [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: fixtures: queries: neighborhood_search: fragment: fragment-goes-here hide_sql: true sql: |- select neighborhood, facet_cities.name, state from facetable join facet_cities on facetable.city_id = facet_cities.id where neighborhood like '%' || :text || '%' order by neighborhood; """) ]]] [[[end]]] See here for a demo of this in action. | 92 | |
| 11 | 11 | Writable canned queries | Canned queries by default are read-only. You can use the "write": true key to indicate that a canned query can write to the database. See Access to specific canned queries for details on how to add permission checks to canned queries, using the "allow" key. [[[cog config_example(cog, { "databases": { "mydatabase": { "queries": { "add_name": { "sql": "INSERT INTO names (name) VALUES (:name)", "write": True } } } } }) ]]] [[[end]]] This configuration will create a page at /mydatabase/add_name displaying a form with a name field. Submitting that form will execute the configured INSERT query. You can customize how Datasette represents success and errors using the following optional properties: on_success_message - the message shown when a query is successful on_success_message_sql - alternative to on_success_message : a SQL query that should be executed to generate the message on_success_redirect - the path or URL the user is redirected to on success on_error_message - the message shown when a query throws an error on_error_redirect - the path or URL the user is redirected to on error For example: [[[cog config_example(cog, { "databases": { "mydatabase": { "queries": { "add_name": { "sql": "INSERT INTO names (name) VALUES (:name)", "params": ["name"], "write": Tru… | 92 | |
| 12 | 12 | Magic parameters | Named parameters that start with an underscore are special: they can be used to automatically add values created by Datasette that are not contained in the incoming form fields or query string. These magic parameters are only supported for canned queries: to avoid security issues (such as queries that extract the user's private cookies) they are not available to SQL that is executed by the user as a custom SQL query. Available magic parameters are: _actor_* - e.g. _actor_id , _actor_name Fields from the currently authenticated Actors . _header_* - e.g. _header_user_agent Header from the incoming HTTP request. The key should be in lower case and with hyphens converted to underscores e.g. _header_user_agent or _header_accept_language . _cookie_* - e.g. _cookie_lang The value of the incoming cookie of that name. _now_epoch The number of seconds since the Unix epoch. _now_date_utc The date in UTC, e.g. 2020-06-01 _now_datetime_utc The ISO 8601 datetime in UTC, e.g. 2020-06-24T18:01:07Z _random_chars_* - e.g. … | 92 | |
| 13 | 13 | JSON API for writable canned queries | Writable canned queries can also be accessed using a JSON API. You can POST data to them using JSON, and you can request that their response is returned to you as JSON. To submit JSON to a writable canned query, encode key/value parameters as a JSON document: POST /mydatabase/add_message {"message": "Message goes here"} You can also continue to submit data using regular form encoding, like so: POST /mydatabase/add_message message=Message+goes+here There are three options for specifying that you would like the response to your request to return JSON data, as opposed to an HTTP redirect to another page. Set an Accept: application/json header on your request Include ?_json=1 in the URL that you POST to Include "_json": 1 in your JSON body, or &_json=1 in your form encoded body The JSON response will look like this: { "ok": true, "message": "Query executed, 1 row affected", "redirect": "/data/add_name" } The "message" and "redirect" values here will take into account on_success_message , on_success_message_sql , on_success_redirect , on_error_message and on_error_redirect , if they have been set. | 92 | |
| 14 | 14 | Pagination | Datasette's default table pagination is designed to be extremely efficient. SQL OFFSET/LIMIT pagination can have a significant performance penalty once you get into multiple thousands of rows, as each page still requires the database to scan through every preceding row to find the correct offset. When paginating through tables, Datasette instead orders the rows in the table by their primary key and performs a WHERE clause against the last seen primary key for the previous page. For example: select rowid, * from Tree_List where rowid > 200 order by rowid limit 101 This represents page three for this particular table, with a page size of 100. Note that we request 101 items in the limit clause rather than 100. This allows us to detect if we are on the last page of the results: if the query returns less than 101 rows we know we have reached the end of the pagination set. Datasette will only return the first 100 rows - the 101st is used purely to detect if there should be another page. Since the where clause acts against the index on the primary key, the query is extremely fast even for records that are a long way into the overall pagination set. | 92 | |
| 15 | 15 | Cross-database queries | SQLite has the ability to run queries that join across multiple databases. Up to ten databases can be attached to a single SQLite connection and queried together. Datasette can execute joins across multiple databases if it is started with the --crossdb option: datasette fixtures.db extra_database.db --crossdb If it is started in this way, the /_memory page can be used to execute queries that join across multiple databases. References to tables in attached databases should be preceded by the database name and a period. For example, this query will show a list of tables across both of the above databases: select 'fixtures' as database, * from [fixtures].sqlite_master union select 'extra_database' as database, * from [extra_database].sqlite_master Try that out here . | 92 | |
| 16 | 16 | Deploying Datasette | The quickest way to deploy a Datasette instance on the internet is to use the datasette publish command, described in Publishing data . This can be used to quickly deploy Datasette to a number of hosting providers including Heroku, Google Cloud Run and Vercel. You can deploy Datasette to other hosting providers using the instructions on this page. | 92 | |
| 17 | 17 | Deployment fundamentals | Datasette can be deployed as a single datasette process that listens on a port. Datasette is not designed to be run as root, so that process should listen on a higher port such as port 8000. If you want to serve Datasette on port 80 (the HTTP default port) or port 443 (for HTTPS) you should run it behind a proxy server, such as nginx, Apache or HAProxy. The proxy server can listen on port 80/443 and forward traffic on to Datasette. | 92 | |
| 18 | 18 | Running Datasette using systemd | You can run Datasette on Ubuntu or Debian systems using systemd . First, ensure you have Python 3 and pip installed. On Ubuntu you can use sudo apt-get install python3 python3-pip . You can install Datasette into a virtual environment, or you can install it system-wide. To install system-wide, use sudo pip3 install datasette . Now create a folder for your Datasette databases, for example using mkdir /home/ubuntu/datasette-root . You can copy a test database into that folder like so: cd /home/ubuntu/datasette-root curl -O https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures.db Create a file at /etc/systemd/system/datasette.service with the following contents: [Unit] Description=Datasette After=network.target [Service] Type=simple User=ubuntu Environment=DATASETTE_SECRET= WorkingDirectory=/home/ubuntu/datasette-root ExecStart=datasette serve . -h 127.0.0.1 -p 8000 Restart=on-failure [Install] WantedBy=multi-user.target Add a random value for the DATASETTE_SECRET - this will be used to sign Datasette cookies such as the CSRF token cookie. You can generate a suitable value like so: python3 -c 'import secrets; print(secrets.token_hex(32))' This configuration will run Datasette against all database files contained in the /home/ubuntu/datasette-root directory. If that directory contains a metadata.yml (or .json ) file or a templates/ or plugins/ sub-directory those will automatically be loaded by Datasette - see Configuration directory mode for details. You can start the Datasette process running using the following: sudo systemctl daemon-reload sudo systemctl start datasette.service You will need to restart the Datasette service after making changes to its metadata.json configuration or adding a new database file to that directory. You can do that using: sudo systemctl restart datasette.service Once the … | 92 | |
| 19 | 19 | Running Datasette using OpenRC | OpenRC is the service manager on non-systemd Linux distributions like Alpine Linux and Gentoo . Create an init script at /etc/init.d/datasette with the following contents: #!/sbin/openrc-run name="datasette" command="datasette" command_args="serve -h 0.0.0.0 /path/to/db.db" command_background=true pidfile="/run/${RC_SVCNAME}.pid" You then need to configure the service to run at boot and start it: rc-update add datasette rc-service datasette start | 92 | |
| 20 | 20 | Deploying using buildpacks | Some hosting providers such as Heroku , DigitalOcean App Platform and Scalingo support the Buildpacks standard for deploying Python web applications. Deploying Datasette on these platforms requires two files: requirements.txt and Procfile . The requirements.txt file lets the platform know which Python packages should be installed. It should contain datasette at a minimum, but can also list any Datasette plugins you wish to install - for example: datasette datasette-vega The Procfile lets the hosting platform know how to run the command that serves web traffic. It should look like this: web: datasette . -h 0.0.0.0 -p $PORT --cors The $PORT environment variable is provided by the hosting platform. --cors enables CORS requests from JavaScript running on other websites to your domain - omit this if you don't want to allow CORS. You can add additional Datasette Settings options here too. These two files should be enough to deploy Datasette on any host that supports buildpacks. Datasette will serve any SQLite files that are included in the root directory of the application. If you want to build SQLite files or download them as part of the deployment process you can do so using a bin/post_compile file. For example, the following bin/post_compile will download an example database that will then be served by Datasette: wget https://fivethirtyeight.datasettes.com/fivethirtyeight.db simonw/buildpack-datasette-demo is an example GitHub repository showing a Datasette configuration that can be deployed to a buildpack-supporting host. | 92 | |
| 21 | 21 | Running Datasette behind a proxy | You may wish to run Datasette behind an Apache or nginx proxy, using a path within your existing site. You can use the base_url configuration setting to tell Datasette to serve traffic with a specific URL prefix. For example, you could run Datasette like this: datasette my-database.db --setting base_url /my-datasette/ -p 8009 This will run Datasette with the following URLs: http://127.0.0.1:8009/my-datasette/ - the Datasette homepage http://127.0.0.1:8009/my-datasette/my-database - the page for the my-database.db database http://127.0.0.1:8009/my-datasette/my-database/some_table - the page for the some_table table You can now set your nginx or Apache server to proxy the /my-datasette/ path to this Datasette instance. | 92 | |
| 22 | 22 | Nginx proxy configuration | Here is an example of an nginx configuration file that will proxy traffic to Datasette: daemon off; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { server { listen 80; location /my-datasette { proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:8009/my-datasette; proxy_set_header Host $host; } } } You can also use the --uds option to Datasette to listen on a Unix domain socket instead of a port, configuring the nginx upstream proxy like this: daemon off; events { worker_connections 1024; } http { server { listen 80; location /my-datasette { proxy_pass http://datasette/my-datasette; proxy_set_header Host $host; } } upstream datasette { server unix:/tmp/datasette.sock; } } Then run Datasette with datasette --uds /tmp/datasette.sock path/to/database.db --setting base_url /my-datasette/ . | 92 | |
| 23 | 23 | Apache proxy configuration | For Apache , you can use the ProxyPass directive. First make sure the following lines are uncommented: LoadModule proxy_module lib/httpd/modules/mod_proxy.so LoadModule proxy_http_module lib/httpd/modules/mod_proxy_http.so Then add these directives to proxy traffic: ProxyPass /my-datasette/ http://127.0.0.1:8009/my-datasette/ ProxyPreserveHost On A live demo of Datasette running behind Apache using this proxy setup can be seen at datasette-apache-proxy-demo.datasette.io/prefix/ . The code for that demo can be found in the demos/apache-proxy directory. Using --uds you can use Unix domain sockets similar to the nginx example: ProxyPass /my-datasette/ unix:/tmp/datasette.sock|http://localhost/my-datasette/ The ProxyPreserveHost On directive ensures that the original Host: header from the incoming request is passed through to Datasette. Datasette needs this to correctly assemble links to other pages using the .absolute_url(request, path) method. | 92 | |
| 24 | 24 | The Datasette Ecosystem | Datasette sits at the center of a growing ecosystem of open source tools aimed at making it as easy as possible to gather, analyze and publish interesting data. These tools are divided into two main groups: tools for building SQLite databases (for use with Datasette) and plugins that extend Datasette's functionality. The Datasette project website includes a directory of plugins and a directory of tools: Plugins directory on datasette.io Tools directory on datasette.io | 92 | |
| 25 | 25 | sqlite-utils | sqlite-utils is a key building block for the wider Datasette ecosystem. It provides a collection of utilities for manipulating SQLite databases, both as a Python library and a command-line utility. Features include: Insert data into a SQLite database from JSON, CSV or TSV, automatically creating tables with the correct schema or altering existing tables to add missing columns. Configure tables for use with SQLite full-text search, including creating triggers needed to keep the search index up-to-date. Modify tables in ways that are not supported by SQLite's default ALTER TABLE syntax - for example changing the types of columns or selecting a new primary key for a table. Adding foreign keys to existing database tables. Extracting columns of data into a separate lookup table. | 92 | |
| 26 | 26 | Dogsheep | Dogsheep is a collection of tools for personal analytics using SQLite and Datasette. The project provides tools like github-to-sqlite and twitter-to-sqlite that can import data from different sources in order to create a personal data warehouse. Personal Data Warehouses: Reclaiming Your Data is a talk that explains Dogsheep and demonstrates it in action. | 92 | |
| 27 | 27 | Authentication and permissions | Datasette doesn't require authentication by default. Any visitor to a Datasette instance can explore the full data and execute read-only SQL queries. Datasette can be configured to only allow authenticated users, or to control which databases, tables, and queries can be accessed by the public or by specific users. Datasette's plugin system can be used to add many different styles of authentication, such as user accounts, single sign-on or API keys. | 92 | |
| 28 | 28 | Actors | Through plugins, Datasette can support both authenticated users (with cookies) and authenticated API clients (via authentication tokens). The word "actor" is used to cover both of these cases. Every request to Datasette has an associated actor value, available in the code as request.actor . This can be None for unauthenticated requests, or a JSON compatible Python dictionary for authenticated users or API clients. The actor dictionary can be any shape - the design of that data structure is left up to the plugins. Actors should always include a unique "id" string, as demonstrated by the "root" actor below. Plugins can use the actor_from_request(datasette, request) hook to implement custom logic for authenticating an actor based on the incoming HTTP request. | 92 | |
| 29 | 29 | Using the "root" actor | Datasette currently leaves almost all forms of authentication to plugins - datasette-auth-github for example. The one exception is the "root" account, which you can sign into while using Datasette on your local machine. The root user has all permissions - they can perform any action regardless of other permission rules. The --root flag is designed for local development and testing. When you start Datasette with --root , the root user automatically receives every permission, including: All view permissions ( view-instance , view-database , view-table , etc.) All write permissions ( insert-row , update-row , delete-row , create-table , alter-table , drop-table ) Debug permissions ( permissions-debug , debug-menu ) Any custom permissions defined by plugins If you add explicit deny rules in datasette.yaml those can still block the root actor from specific databases or tables. The --root flag sets an internal root_enabled switch—without it, a signed-in user with {"id": "root"} is treated like any other actor. To sign in as root, start Datasette using the --root command-line option, like this: datasette --root Datasette will output a single-use-only login URL on startup: http://127.0.0.1:8001/-/auth-token?token=786fc524e0199d70dc9a581d851f466244e114ca92f33aa3b42a139e9388daa7 INFO: Started server process [25801] INFO: Waiting for application startup. INFO: Application startup complete. INFO: Uvicorn running on http://127.0.0.1:8001 (Press CTRL+C to quit) Click on that link and then visit ht… | 92 | |
| 30 | 30 | Permissions | Datasette's permissions system is built around SQL queries. Datasette and its plugins construct SQL queries to resolve the list of resources that an actor cas access. The key question the permissions system answers is this: Is this actor allowed to perform this action , optionally against this particular resource ? Actors are described above . An action is a string describing the action the actor would like to perform. A full list is provided below - examples include view-table and execute-sql . A resource is the item the actor wishes to interact with - for example a specific database or table. Some actions, such as permissions-debug , are not associated with a particular resource. Datasette's built-in view actions ( view-database , view-table etc) are allowed by Datasette's default configuration: unless you configure additional permission rules unauthenticated users will be allowed to access content. Other actions, including those introduced by plugins, will default to deny . | 92 | |
| 31 | 31 | Denying all permissions by default | By default, Datasette allows unauthenticated access to view databases, tables, and execute SQL queries. You may want to run Datasette in a mode where all access is denied by default, and you explicitly grant permissions only to authenticated users, either using the --root mechanism or through configuration file rules or plugins. Use the --default-deny command-line option to run Datasette in this mode: datasette --default-deny data.db --root With --default-deny enabled: Anonymous users are denied access to view the instance, databases, tables, and queries Authenticated users are also denied access unless they're explicitly granted permissions The root user (when using --root ) still has access to everything You can grant permissions using configuration file rules or plugins For example, to allow only a specific user to access your instance: datasette --default-deny data.db --config datasette.yaml Where datasette.yaml contains: allow: id: alice This configuration will deny access to everyone except the user with id of alice . | 92 | |
| 32 | 32 | How permissions are resolved | Datasette performs permission checks using the internal await .allowed(*, action, resource, actor=None) , method which accepts keyword arguments for action , resource and an optional actor . resource should be an instance of the appropriate Resource subclass from datasette.resources —for example InstanceResource() , DatabaseResource(database="... )`` or TableResource(database="...", table="...") . This defaults to InstanceResource() if not specified. When a check runs Datasette gathers allow/deny rules from multiple sources and compiles them into a SQL query. The resulting query describes all of the resources an actor may access for that action, together with the reasons those resources were allowed or denied. The combined sources are: allow blocks configured in datasette.yaml . Actor restrictions encoded into the actor dictionary or API token. The "root" user shortcut when --root (or Datasette.root_enabled ) is active, replying True to all permission chucks unless configuration rules deny them at a more specific level. Any additional SQL provided by plugins implementing permission_resources_sql(datasette, actor, action) . Datasette evaluates the SQL to determine if the requested resource is included. Explicit deny rules returned by configuration or plugins will block access even if other rules allowed it. | 92 | |
| 33 | 33 | Defining permissions with "allow" blocks | One way to define permissions in Datasette is to use an "allow" block in the datasette.yaml file . This is a JSON document describing which actors are allowed to perform an action against a specific resource. Each allow block is compiled into SQL and combined with any plugin-provided rules to produce the cascading allow/deny decisions that power await .allowed(*, action, resource, actor=None) . The most basic form of allow block is this ( allow demo , deny demo ): [[[cog from metadata_doc import config_example import textwrap config_example(cog, textwrap.dedent( """ allow: id: root """).strip(), "YAML", "JSON" ) ]]] [[[end]]] This will match any actors with an "id" property of "root" - for example, an actor that looks like this: { "id": "root", "name": "Root User" } An allow block can specify "deny all" using false ( demo ): [[[cog from metadata_doc import config_example import textwrap config_example(cog, textwrap.dedent( """ allow: false """).strip(), "YAML", "JSON" ) ]]] [[[end]]] An "allow" of true allows all access ( demo ): [[[cog from metadata_doc import config_example import textwrap config_example(cog, textwrap.dedent( """ allow: true """).strip(), "YAML", "JSON" ) ]]] [[[end]]] Allow keys can provide a list of values. These will match any actor that has any of those values ( allow demo , deny demo ): [[[cog from metadata_doc import config_example import textwrap config_example(cog, textwrap.dedent( """ allow: id: - simon - cleopaws """).strip(), "YAML", "JSON" ) ]]] [[[end]]] This will match any a… | 92 | |
| 34 | 34 | The /-/allow-debug tool | The /-/allow-debug tool lets you try out different "action" blocks against different "actor" JSON objects. You can try that out here: https://latest.datasette.io/-/allow-debug | 92 | |
| 35 | 35 | Access permissions in | There are two ways to configure permissions using datasette.yaml (or datasette.json ). For simple visibility permissions you can use "allow" blocks in the root, database, table and query sections. For other permissions you can use a "permissions" block, described in the next section . You can limit who is allowed to view different parts of your Datasette instance using "allow" keys in your Configuration . You can control the following: Access to the entire Datasette instance Access to specific databases Access to specific tables and views Access to specific Canned queries If a user has permission to view a table they will be able to view that table, independent of if they have permission to view the database or instance that the table exists within. | 92 | |
| 36 | 36 | Access to an instance | Here's how to restrict access to your entire Datasette instance to just the "id": "root" user: [[[cog from metadata_doc import config_example config_example(cog, """ title: My private Datasette instance allow: id: root """) ]]] [[[end]]] To deny access to all users, you can use "allow": false : [[[cog config_example(cog, """ title: My entirely inaccessible instance allow: false """) ]]] [[[end]]] One reason to do this is if you are using a Datasette plugin - such as datasette-permissions-sql - to control permissions instead. | 92 | |
| 37 | 37 | Access to specific databases | To limit access to a specific private.db database to just authenticated users, use the "allow" block like this: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: private: allow: id: "*" """) ]]] [[[end]]] | 92 | |
| 38 | 38 | Access to specific tables and views | To limit access to the users table in your bakery.db database: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: bakery: tables: users: allow: id: '*' """) ]]] [[[end]]] This works for SQL views as well - you can list their names in the "tables" block above in the same way as regular tables. Restricting access to tables and views in this way will NOT prevent users from querying them using arbitrary SQL queries, like this for example. If you are restricting access to specific tables you should also use the "allow_sql" block to prevent users from bypassing the limit with their own SQL queries - see Controlling the ability to execute arbitrary SQL . | 92 | |
| 39 | 39 | Access to specific canned queries | Canned queries allow you to configure named SQL queries in your datasette.yaml that can be executed by users. These queries can be set up to both read and write to the database, so controlling who can execute them can be important. To limit access to the add_name canned query in your dogs.db database to just the root user : [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: dogs: queries: add_name: sql: INSERT INTO names (name) VALUES (:name) write: true allow: id: - root """) ]]] [[[end]]] | 92 | |
| 40 | 40 | Controlling the ability to execute arbitrary SQL | Datasette defaults to allowing any site visitor to execute their own custom SQL queries, for example using the form on the database page or by appending a ?_where= parameter to the table page like this . Access to this ability is controlled by the execute-sql permission. The easiest way to disable arbitrary SQL queries is using the default_allow_sql setting when you first start Datasette running. You can alternatively use an "allow_sql" block to control who is allowed to execute arbitrary SQL queries. To prevent any user from executing arbitrary SQL queries, use this: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ allow_sql: false """) ]]] [[[end]]] To enable just the root user to execute SQL for all databases in your instance, use the following: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ allow_sql: id: root """) ]]] [[[end]]] To limit this ability for just one specific database, use this: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: mydatabase: allow_sql: id: root """) ]]] [[[end]]] | 92 | |
| 41 | 41 | Other permissions in | For all other permissions, you can use one or more "permissions" blocks in your datasette.yaml configuration file. To grant access to the permissions debug tool to all signed in users, you can grant permissions-debug to any actor with an id matching the wildcard * by adding this a the root of your configuration: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ permissions: debug-menu: id: '*' """) ]]] [[[end]]] To grant create-table to the user with id of editor for the docs database: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: docs: permissions: create-table: id: editor """) ]]] [[[end]]] And for insert-row against the reports table in that docs database: [[[cog config_example(cog, """ databases: docs: tables: reports: permissions: insert-row: id: editor """) ]]] [[[end]]] The permissions debug tool can be useful for helping test permissions that you have configured in this way. | 92 | |
| 42 | 42 | API Tokens | Datasette includes a default mechanism for generating API tokens that can be used to authenticate requests. Authenticated users can create new API tokens using a form on the /-/create-token page. Tokens created in this way can be further restricted to only allow access to specific actions, or to limit those actions to specific databases, tables or queries. Created tokens can then be passed in the Authorization: Bearer $token header of HTTP requests to Datasette. A token created by a user will include that user's "id" in the token payload, so any permissions granted to that user based on their ID can be made available to the token as well. When one of these a token accompanies a request, the actor for that request will have the following shape: { "id": "user_id", "token": "dstok", "token_expires": 1667717426 } The "id" field duplicates the ID of the actor who first created the token. The "token" field identifies that this actor was authenticated using a Datasette signed token ( dstok ). The "token_expires" field, if present, indicates that the token will expire after that integer timestamp. The /-/create-token page cannot be accessed by actors that are authenticated with a "token": "some-value" property. This is to prevent API tokens from being used to create more tokens. Datasette plugins that implement their own form of API token authentication should follow this convention. You can disable the signed token feature entirely using the allow_signed_tokens setting. | 92 | |
| 43 | 43 | datasette create-token | You can also create tokens on the command line using the datasette create-token command. This command takes one required argument - the ID of the actor to be associated with the created token. You can specify a -e/--expires-after option in seconds. If omitted, the token will never expire. The command will sign the token using the DATASETTE_SECRET environment variable, if available. You can also pass the secret using the --secret option. This means you can run the command locally to create tokens for use with a deployed Datasette instance, provided you know that instance's secret. To create a token for the root actor that will expire in one hour: datasette create-token root --expires-after 3600 To create a token that never expires using a specific secret: datasette create-token root --secret my-secret-goes-here | 92 | |
| 44 | 44 | Restricting the actions that a token can perform | Tokens created using datasette create-token ACTOR_ID will inherit all of the permissions of the actor that they are associated with. You can pass additional options to create tokens that are restricted to a subset of that actor's permissions. To restrict the token to just specific permissions against all available databases, use the --all option: datasette create-token root --all insert-row --all update-row This option can be passed as many times as you like. In the above example the token will only be allowed to insert and update rows. You can also restrict permissions such that they can only be used within specific databases: datasette create-token root --database mydatabase insert-row The resulting token will only be able to insert rows, and only to tables in the mydatabase database. Finally, you can restrict permissions to individual resources - tables, SQL views and named queries - within a specific database: datasette create-token root --resource mydatabase mytable insert-row These options have short versions: -a for --all , -d for --database and -r for --resource . You can add --debug to see a JSON representation of the token that has been created. Here's a full example: datasette create-token root \ --secret mysecret \ --all view-instance \ --all view-table \ --database docs view-query \ --resource docs documents insert-row \ --resource docs documents update-row \ --debug This example outputs the following: dstok_.eJxFizEKgDAMRe_y5w4qYrFXERGxDkVsMI0uxbubdjFL8l_ez1jhwEQCA6Fjjxp90qtkuHawzdjYrh8MFobLxZ_wBH0_gtnAF-hpS5VfmF8D_lnd97lHqUJgLd6sls4H1qwlhA.nH_7RecYHj5qSzvjhMU95iy0Xlc Decoded: { "a": "root", "token": "dstok", "t": 1670907246, "_r": { "a… | 92 | |
| 45 | 45 | Checking permissions in plugins | Datasette plugins can check if an actor has permission to perform an action using await .allowed(*, action, resource, actor=None) —for example: from datasette.resources import TableResource can_edit = await datasette.allowed( action="update-row", resource=TableResource(database="fixtures", table="facetable"), actor=request.actor, ) Use await .ensure_permission(action, resource=None, actor=None) when you need to enforce a permission and raise a Forbidden error automatically. Plugins that define new operations should return Action objects from register_actions(datasette) and can supply additional allow/deny rules by returning PermissionSQL objects from the permission_resources_sql(datasette, actor, action) hook. Those rules are merged with configuration allow blocks and actor restrictions to determine the final result for each check. | 92 | |
| 46 | 46 | actor_matches_allow() | Plugins that wish to implement this same "allow" block permissions scheme can take advantage of the datasette.utils.actor_matches_allow(actor, allow) function: from datasette.utils import actor_matches_allow actor_matches_allow({"id": "root"}, {"id": "*"}) # returns True The currently authenticated actor is made available to plugins as request.actor . | 92 | |
| 47 | 47 | Permissions debug tools | The debug tool at /-/permissions is available to any actor with the permissions-debug permission. By default this is just the authenticated root user but you can open it up to all users by starting Datasette like this: datasette -s permissions.permissions-debug true data.db The page shows the permission checks that have been carried out by the Datasette instance. It also provides an interface for running hypothetical permission checks against a hypothetical actor. This is a useful way of confirming that your configured permissions work in the way you expect. This is designed to help administrators and plugin authors understand exactly how permission checks are being carried out, in order to effectively configure Datasette's permission system. | 92 | |
| 48 | 48 | Allowed resources view | The /-/allowed endpoint displays resources that the current actor can access for a specified action . This endpoint provides an interactive HTML form interface. Add .json to the URL path (e.g. /-/allowed.json ) to get the raw JSON response instead. Pass ?action=view-table (or another action) to select the action. Optional parent= and child= query parameters can narrow the results to a specific database/table pair. This endpoint is publicly accessible to help users understand their own permissions. The potentially sensitive reason field is only shown to users with the permissions-debug permission - it shows the plugins and explanatory reasons that were responsible for each decision. | 92 | |
| 49 | 49 | Permission rules view | The /-/rules endpoint displays all permission rules (both allow and deny) for each candidate resource for the requested action. This endpoint provides an interactive HTML form interface. Add .json to the URL path (e.g. /-/rules.json?action=view-table ) to get the raw JSON response instead. Pass ?action= as a query parameter to specify which action to check. This endpoint requires the permissions-debug permission. | 92 | |
| 50 | 50 | Permission check view | The /-/check endpoint evaluates a single action/resource pair and returns information indicating whether the access was allowed along with diagnostic information. This endpoint provides an interactive HTML form interface. Add .json to the URL path (e.g. /-/check.json?action=view-instance ) to get the raw JSON response instead. Pass ?action= to specify the action to check, and optional ?parent= and ?child= parameters to specify the resource. | 92 | |
| 51 | 51 | The ds_actor cookie | Datasette includes a default authentication plugin which looks for a signed ds_actor cookie containing a JSON actor dictionary. This is how the root actor mechanism works. Authentication plugins can set signed ds_actor cookies themselves like so: response = Response.redirect("/") datasette.set_actor_cookie(response, {"id": "cleopaws"}) The shape of data encoded in the cookie is as follows: { "a": { "id": "cleopaws" } } To implement logout in a plugin, use the delete_actor_cookie() method: response = Response.redirect("/") datasette.delete_actor_cookie(response) | 92 | |
| 52 | 52 | Including an expiry time | ds_actor cookies can optionally include a signed expiry timestamp, after which the cookies will no longer be valid. Authentication plugins may chose to use this mechanism to limit the lifetime of the cookie. For example, if a plugin implements single-sign-on against another source it may decide to set short-lived cookies so that if the user is removed from the SSO system their existing Datasette cookies will stop working shortly afterwards. To include an expiry pass expire_after= to datasette.set_actor_cookie() with a number of seconds. For example, to expire in 24 hours: response = Response.redirect("/") datasette.set_actor_cookie( response, {"id": "cleopaws"}, expire_after=60 * 60 * 24 ) The resulting cookie will encode data that looks something like this: { "a": { "id": "cleopaws" }, "e": "1jjSji" } | 92 | |
| 53 | 53 | The /-/logout page | The page at /-/logout provides the ability to log out of a ds_actor cookie authentication session. | 92 | |
| 54 | 54 | Built-in actions | This section lists all of the permission checks that are carried out by Datasette core, along with the resource if it was passed. | 92 | |
| 55 | 55 | view-instance | Top level permission - Actor is allowed to view any pages within this instance, starting at https://latest.datasette.io/ | 92 | |
| 56 | 56 | view-database | Actor is allowed to view a database page, e.g. https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures resource - datasette.permissions.DatabaseResource(database) database is the name of the database (string) | 92 | |
| 57 | 57 | view-database-download | Actor is allowed to download a database, e.g. https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures.db resource - datasette.resources.DatabaseResource(database) database is the name of the database (string) | 92 | |
| 58 | 58 | view-table | Actor is allowed to view a table (or view) page, e.g. https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/complex_foreign_keys resource - datasette.resources.TableResource(database, table) database is the name of the database (string) table is the name of the table (string) | 92 | |
| 59 | 59 | view-query | Actor is allowed to view (and execute) a canned query page, e.g. https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/pragma_cache_size - this includes executing Writable canned queries . resource - datasette.resources.QueryResource(database, query) database is the name of the database (string) query is the name of the canned query (string) | 92 | |
| 60 | 60 | insert-row | Actor is allowed to insert rows into a table. resource - datasette.resources.TableResource(database, table) database is the name of the database (string) table is the name of the table (string) | 92 | |
| 61 | 61 | delete-row | Actor is allowed to delete rows from a table. resource - datasette.resources.TableResource(database, table) database is the name of the database (string) table is the name of the table (string) | 92 | |
| 62 | 62 | update-row | Actor is allowed to update rows in a table. resource - datasette.resources.TableResource(database, table) database is the name of the database (string) table is the name of the table (string) | 92 | |
| 63 | 63 | create-table | Actor is allowed to create a database table. resource - datasette.resources.DatabaseResource(database) database is the name of the database (string) | 92 | |
| 64 | 64 | alter-table | Actor is allowed to alter a database table. resource - datasette.resources.TableResource(database, table) database is the name of the database (string) table is the name of the table (string) | 92 | |
| 65 | 65 | drop-table | Actor is allowed to drop a database table. resource - datasette.resources.TableResource(database, table) database is the name of the database (string) table is the name of the table (string) | 92 | |
| 66 | 66 | execute-sql | Actor is allowed to run arbitrary SQL queries against a specific database, e.g. https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/-/query?sql=select+100 resource - datasette.resources.DatabaseResource(database) database is the name of the database (string) See also the default_allow_sql setting . | 92 | |
| 67 | 67 | permissions-debug | Actor is allowed to view the /-/permissions debug tools. | 92 | |
| 68 | 68 | debug-menu | Controls if the various debug pages are displayed in the navigation menu. | 92 | |
| 69 | 69 | JSON API | Datasette provides a JSON API for your SQLite databases. Anything you can do through the Datasette user interface can also be accessed as JSON via the API. To access the API for a page, either click on the .json link on that page or edit the URL and add a .json extension to it. | 92 | |
| 70 | 70 | Default representation | The default JSON representation of data from a SQLite table or custom query looks like this: { "ok": true, "rows": [ { "id": 3, "name": "Detroit" }, { "id": 2, "name": "Los Angeles" }, { "id": 4, "name": "Memnonia" }, { "id": 1, "name": "San Francisco" } ], "truncated": false } "ok" is always true if an error did not occur. The "rows" key is a list of objects, each one representing a row. The "truncated" key lets you know if the query was truncated. This can happen if a SQL query returns more than 1,000 results (or the max_returned_rows setting). For table pages, an additional key "next" may be present. This indicates that the next page in the pagination set can be retrieved using ?_next=VALUE . | 92 | |
| 71 | 71 | Different shapes | The _shape parameter can be used to access alternative formats for the rows key which may be more convenient for your application. There are three options: ?_shape=objects - "rows" is a list of JSON key/value objects - the default ?_shape=arrays - "rows" is a list of lists, where the order of values in each list matches the order of the columns ?_shape=array - a JSON array of objects - effectively just the "rows" key from the default representation ?_shape=array&_nl=on - a newline-separated list of JSON objects ?_shape=arrayfirst - a flat JSON array containing just the first value from each row ?_shape=object - a JSON object keyed using the primary keys of the rows _shape=arrays looks like this: { "ok": true, "next": null, "rows": [ [3, "Detroit"], [2, "Los Angeles"], [4, "Memnonia"], [1, "San Francisco"] ] } _shape=array looks like this: [ { "id": 3, "name": "Detroit" }, { "id": 2, "name": "Los Angeles" }, { "id": 4, "name": "Memnonia" }, { "id": 1, "name": "San Francisco" } ] _shape=array&_nl=on looks like this: {"id": 1, "value": "Myoporum laetum :: Myoporum"} {"id": 2, "value": "Metrosideros excelsa :: New Zealand Xmas Tree"} {"id": 3, "value": "Pinus radiata :: Monterey Pine"} _shape=arrayfirst looks like this: [1, 2, 3] _shape=object looks like this: { "1": { "id": 1, "value": "Myoporum laetum :: Myoporum" }, "2": { "id": 2, "value": "Metrosideros excelsa :… | 92 | |
| 72 | 72 | Pagination | The default JSON representation includes a "next_url" key which can be used to access the next page of results. If that key is null or missing then it means you have reached the final page of results. Other representations include pagination information in the link HTTP header. That header will look something like this: link: <https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/sortable.json?_next=d%2Cv>; rel="next" Here is an example Python function built using requests that returns a list of all of the paginated items from one of these API endpoints: def paginate(url): items = [] while url: response = requests.get(url) try: url = response.links.get("next").get("url") except AttributeError: url = None items.extend(response.json()) return items | 92 | |
| 73 | 73 | Special JSON arguments | Every Datasette endpoint that can return JSON also accepts the following query string arguments: ?_shape=SHAPE The shape of the JSON to return, documented above. ?_nl=on When used with ?_shape=array produces newline-delimited JSON objects. ?_json=COLUMN1&_json=COLUMN2 If any of your SQLite columns contain JSON values, you can use one or more _json= parameters to request that those columns be returned as regular JSON. Without this argument those columns will be returned as JSON objects that have been double-encoded into a JSON string value. Compare this query without the argument to this query using the argument ?_json_infinity=on If your data contains infinity or -infinity values, Datasette will replace them with None when returning them as JSON. If you pass _json_infinity=1 Datasette will instead return them as Infinity or -Infinity which is invalid JSON but can be processed by some custom JSON parsers. ?_timelimit=MS Sets a custom time limit for the query in ms. You can use this for optimistic queries where you would like Datasette to give up if the query takes too long, for example if you want to implement autocomplete search but only… | 92 | |
| 74 | 74 | Table arguments | The Datasette table view takes a number of special query string arguments. | 92 | |
| 75 | 75 | Column filter arguments | You can filter the data returned by the table based on column values using a query string argument. ?column__exact=value or ?_column=value Returns rows where the specified column exactly matches the value. ?column__not=value Returns rows where the column does not match the value. ?column__contains=value Rows where the string column contains the specified value ( column like "%value%" in SQL). ?column__notcontains=value Rows where the string column does not contain the specified value ( column not like "%value%" in SQL). ?column__endswith=value Rows where the string column ends with the specified value ( column like "%value" in SQL). ?column__startswith=value Rows where the string column starts with the specified value ( column like "value%" in SQL). ?column__gt=value Rows which are greater than the specified value. ?column__gte=value Rows which… | 92 | |
| 76 | 76 | Special table arguments | ?_col=COLUMN1&_col=COLUMN2 List specific columns to display. These will be shown along with any primary keys. ?_nocol=COLUMN1&_nocol=COLUMN2 List specific columns to hide - any column not listed will be displayed. Primary keys cannot be hidden. ?_labels=on/off Expand foreign key references for every possible column. See below. ?_label=COLUMN1&_label=COLUMN2 Expand foreign key references for one or more specified columns. ?_size=1000 or ?_size=max Sets a custom page size. This cannot exceed the max_returned_rows limit passed to datasette serve . Use max to get max_returned_rows . ?_sort=COLUMN Sorts the results by the specified column. ?_sort_desc=COLUMN Sorts the results by the specified column in descending order. ?_search=keywords For SQLite tables that have been configured for full-text search executes a search … | 92 | |
| 77 | 77 | Expanding foreign key references | Datasette can detect foreign key relationships and resolve those references into labels. The HTML interface does this by default for every detected foreign key column - you can turn that off using ?_labels=off . You can request foreign keys be expanded in JSON using the _labels=on or _label=COLUMN special query string parameters. Here's what an expanded row looks like: [ { "rowid": 1, "TreeID": 141565, "qLegalStatus": { "value": 1, "label": "Permitted Site" }, "qSpecies": { "value": 1, "label": "Myoporum laetum :: Myoporum" }, "qAddress": "501X Baker St", "SiteOrder": 1 } ] The column in the foreign key table that is used for the label can be specified in metadata.json - see Specifying the label column for a table . | 92 | |
| 78 | 78 | Discovering the JSON for a page | Most of the HTML pages served by Datasette provide a mechanism for discovering their JSON equivalents using the HTML link mechanism. You can find this near the top of the source code of those pages, looking like this: <link rel="alternate" type="application/json+datasette" href="https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/sortable.json"> The JSON URL is also made available in a Link HTTP header for the page: Link: <https://latest.datasette.io/fixtures/sortable.json>; rel="alternate"; type="application/json+datasette" | 92 | |
| 79 | 79 | Enabling CORS | If you start Datasette with the --cors option, each JSON endpoint will be served with the following additional HTTP headers: [[[cog from datasette.utils import add_cors_headers import textwrap headers = {} add_cors_headers(headers) output = "\n".join("{}: {}".format(k, v) for k, v in headers.items()) cog.out("\n::\n\n") cog.out(textwrap.indent(output, ' ')) cog.out("\n\n") ]]] Access-Control-Allow-Origin: * Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization, Content-Type Access-Control-Expose-Headers: Link Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, POST, HEAD, OPTIONS Access-Control-Max-Age: 3600 [[[end]]] This allows JavaScript running on any domain to make cross-origin requests to interact with the Datasette API. If you start Datasette without the --cors option only JavaScript running on the same domain as Datasette will be able to access the API. Here's how to serve data.db with CORS enabled: datasette data.db --cors | 92 | |
| 80 | 80 | The JSON write API | Datasette provides a write API for JSON data. This is a POST-only API that requires an authenticated API token, see API Tokens . The token will need to have the specified Permissions . | 92 | |
| 81 | 81 | Inserting rows | This requires the insert-row permission. A single row can be inserted using the "row" key: POST /<database>/<table>/-/insert Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> { "row": { "column1": "value1", "column2": "value2" } } If successful, this will return a 201 status code and the newly inserted row, for example: { "rows": [ { "id": 1, "column1": "value1", "column2": "value2" } ] } To insert multiple rows at a time, use the same API method but send a list of dictionaries as the "rows" key: POST /<database>/<table>/-/insert Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> { "rows": [ { "column1": "value1", "column2": "value2" }, { "column1": "value3", "column2": "value4" } ] } If successful, this will return a 201 status code and a {"ok": true} response body. The maximum number rows that can be submitted at once defaults to 100, but this can be changed using the max_insert_rows setting. To return the newly inserted rows, add the "return": true key to the request body: { "rows": [ { "column1": "value1", "column2": "value2" }, { "column1": "value3", "column2": "value4" } ], "return": true } This will return the same "rows" key as the single row example above. There is a small performance penalty for using this option. If any of your rows have a primary key that is already in use, you will get an error and none of the rows will be inserted: { "ok": false, "errors": [ "UNIQUE constraint failed: new_table… | 92 | |
| 82 | 82 | Upserting rows | An upsert is an insert or update operation. If a row with a matching primary key already exists it will be updated - otherwise a new row will be inserted. The upsert API is mostly the same shape as the insert API . It requires both the insert-row and update-row permissions. POST /<database>/<table>/-/upsert Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> { "rows": [ { "id": 1, "title": "Updated title for 1", "description": "Updated description for 1" }, { "id": 2, "description": "Updated description for 2", }, { "id": 3, "title": "Item 3", "description": "Description for 3" } ] } Imagine a table with a primary key of id and which already has rows with id values of 1 and 2 . The above example will: Update the row with id of 1 to set both title and description to the new values Update the row with id of 2 to set title to the new value - description will be left unchanged Insert a new row with id of 3 and both title and description set to the new values Similar to /-/insert , a row key with an object can be used instead of a rows array to upsert a single row. If successful, this will return a 200 status code and a {"ok": true} response body. Add "return": true to the request body to return full copies of the affected rows after they have been inserted or updated: { "rows": [ { "id": 1, "title": "Updated title for 1", "description": "Updated descri… | 92 | |
| 83 | 83 | Updating a row | To update a row, make a POST to /<database>/<table>/<row-pks>/-/update . This requires the update-row permission. POST /<database>/<table>/<row-pks>/-/update Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> { "update": { "text_column": "New text string", "integer_column": 3, "float_column": 3.14 } } <row-pks> here is the tilde-encoded primary key value of the row to update - or a comma-separated list of primary key values if the table has a composite primary key. You only need to pass the columns you want to update. Any other columns will be left unchanged. If successful, this will return a 200 status code and a {"ok": true} response body. Add "return": true to the request body to return the updated row: { "update": { "title": "New title" }, "return": true } The returned JSON will look like this: { "ok": true, "row": { "id": 1, "title": "New title", "other_column": "Will be present here too" } } Any errors will return {"errors": ["... descriptive message ..."], "ok": false} , and a 400 status code for a bad input or a 403 status code for an authentication or permission error. Pass "alter: true to automatically add any missing columns to the table. This requires the alter-table permission. | 92 | |
| 84 | 84 | Deleting a row | To delete a row, make a POST to /<database>/<table>/<row-pks>/-/delete . This requires the delete-row permission. POST /<database>/<table>/<row-pks>/-/delete Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> <row-pks> here is the tilde-encoded primary key value of the row to delete - or a comma-separated list of primary key values if the table has a composite primary key. If successful, this will return a 200 status code and a {"ok": true} response body. Any errors will return {"errors": ["... descriptive message ..."], "ok": false} , and a 400 status code for a bad input or a 403 status code for an authentication or permission error. | 92 | |
| 85 | 85 | Creating a table | To create a table, make a POST to /<database>/-/create . This requires the create-table permission. POST /<database>/-/create Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> { "table": "name_of_new_table", "columns": [ { "name": "id", "type": "integer" }, { "name": "title", "type": "text" } ], "pk": "id" } The JSON here describes the table that will be created: table is the name of the table to create. This field is required. columns is a list of columns to create. Each column is a dictionary with name and type keys. name is the name of the column. This is required. type is the type of the column. This is optional - if not provided, text will be assumed. The valid types are text , integer , float and blob . pk is the primary key for the table. This is optional - if not provided, Datasette will create a SQLite table with a hidden rowid column. If the primary key is an integer column, it will be configured to automatically increment for each new record. If you set this to id without including an id column in the list of columns , Datasette will create an auto-incrementing integer ID column for you. pks can be used instead of pk to create a compound primary key. It should be a JSON list of column names to use in that primary key. … | 92 | |
| 86 | 86 | Creating a table from example data | Instead of specifying columns directly you can instead pass a single example row or a list of rows . Datasette will create a table with a schema that matches those rows and insert them for you: POST /<database>/-/create Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> { "table": "creatures", "rows": [ { "id": 1, "name": "Tarantula" }, { "id": 2, "name": "Kākāpō" } ], "pk": "id" } Doing this requires both the create-table and insert-row permissions. The 201 response here will be similar to the columns form, but will also include the number of rows that were inserted as row_count : { "ok": true, "database": "data", "table": "creatures", "table_url": "http://127.0.0.1:8001/data/creatures", "table_api_url": "http://127.0.0.1:8001/data/creatures.json", "schema": "CREATE TABLE [creatures] (\n [id] INTEGER PRIMARY KEY,\n [name] TEXT\n)", "row_count": 2 } You can call the create endpoint multiple times for the same table provided you are specifying the table using the rows or row option. New rows will be inserted into the table each time. This means you can use this API if you are unsure if the relevant table has been created yet. If you pass a row to the create endpoint with a primary key that already exists you will get an error that looks like this: { "ok": false, "errors": [ "UNIQUE constraint failed: creatures.id" ] } You can avoid this error by passing the same "ignore": true or "replace": true options to the create endpoint as you can to the insert endpoint . To use the "replace": true option you will also need the update-row permission. Pass "alter": true to automatically add any missing columns to t… | 92 | |
| 87 | 87 | Dropping tables | To drop a table, make a POST to /<database>/<table>/-/drop . This requires the drop-table permission. POST /<database>/<table>/-/drop Content-Type: application/json Authorization: Bearer dstok_<rest-of-token> Without a POST body this will return a status 200 with a note about how many rows will be deleted: { "ok": true, "database": "<database>", "table": "<table>", "row_count": 5, "message": "Pass \"confirm\": true to confirm" } If you pass the following POST body: { "confirm": true } Then the table will be dropped and a status 200 response of {"ok": true} will be returned. Any errors will return {"errors": ["... descriptive message ..."], "ok": false} , and a 400 status code for a bad input or a 403 status code for an authentication or permission error. | 92 | |
| 88 | 88 | Upgrade guide | 92 | ||
| 89 | 89 | Datasette 0.X -> 1.0 | This section reviews breaking changes Datasette 1.0 has when upgrading from a 0.XX version. For new features that 1.0 offers, see the Changelog . | 92 | |
| 90 | 90 | New URL for SQL queries | Prior to 1.0a14 the URL for executing a SQL query looked like this: /databasename?sql=select+1 # Or for JSON: /databasename.json?sql=select+1 This endpoint served two purposes: without a ?sql= it would list the tables in the database, but with that option it would return results of a query instead. The URL for executing a SQL query now looks like this: /databasename/-/query?sql=select+1 # Or for JSON: /databasename/-/query.json?sql=select+1 This isn't a breaking change. API calls to the older /databasename?sql=... endpoint will redirect to the new databasename/-/query?sql=... endpoint. Upgrading to the new URL is recommended to avoid the overhead of the additional redirect. | 92 | |
| 91 | 91 | Metadata changes | Metadata was completely revamped for Datasette 1.0. There are a number of related breaking changes, from the metadata.yaml file to Python APIs, that you'll need to consider when upgrading. | 92 | |
| 92 | 92 | Before Datasette 1.0, the metadata.yaml file became a kitchen sink if a mix of metadata, configuration, and settings. Now metadata.yaml is strictly for metadata (ex title and descriptions of database and tables, licensing info, etc). Other settings have been moved to a datasette.yml configuration file, described in Configuration . To start Datasette with both metadata and configuration files, run it like this: datasette --metadata metadata.yaml --config datasette.yaml # Or the shortened version: datasette -m metadata.yml -c datasette.yml | 92 | ||
| 93 | 93 | Upgrading an existing | The datasette-upgrade plugin can be used to split a Datasette 0.x.x metadata.yaml (or .json ) file into separate metadata.yaml and datasette.yaml files. First, install the plugin: datasette install datasette-upgrade Then run it like this to produce the two new files: datasette upgrade metadata-to-config metadata.json -m metadata.yml -c datasette.yml | 92 | |
| 94 | 94 | Metadata "fallback" has been removed | Certain keys in metadata like license used to "fallback" up the chain of ownership. For example, if you set an MIT to a database and a table within that database did not have a specified license, then that table would inherit an MIT license. This behavior has been removed in Datasette 1.0. Now license fields must be placed on all items, including individual databases and tables. | 92 | |
| 95 | 95 | The | In Datasette 0.x plugins could implement a get_metadata() plugin hook to customize how metadata was retrieved for different instances, databases and tables. This hook could be inefficient, since some pages might load metadata for many different items (to list a large number of tables, for example) which could result in a large number of calls to potentially expensive plugin hook implementations. As of Datasette 1.0a14 (2024-08-05), the get_metadata() hook has been deprecated: # ❌ DEPRECATED in Datasette 1.0 @hookimpl def get_metadata(datasette, key, database, table): pass Instead, plugins are encouraged to interact directly with Datasette's in-memory metadata tables in SQLite using the following methods on the Datasette class : get_instance_metadata() and set_instance_metadata() get_database_metadata() and set_database_metadata() get_resource_metadata() and set_resource_metadata() get_column_metadata() and set_column_metadata() A plugin that stores or calculates its own metadata can implement the startup(datasette) hook to populate those items on startup, and then call those methods while it is running to persist any new metadata changes. | 92 | |
| 96 | 96 | The | As of Datasette 1.0a14 , the root level /metadata.json endpoint has been removed. Metadata for tables will become available through currently in-development extras in a future alpha. | 92 | |
| 97 | 97 | The | As of Datasette 1.0a14 , the .metadata() method on the Datasette Python API has been removed. Instead, one should use the following methods on a Datasette class: get_instance_metadata() get_database_metadata() get_resource_metadata() get_column_metadata() | 92 | |
| 98 | 98 | Datasette 1.0a20 plugin upgrade guide | Datasette 1.0a20 makes some breaking changes to Datasette's permission system. Plugins need to be updated if they use any of the following : The register_permissions() plugin hook - this should be replaced with register_actions The permission_allowed() plugin hook - this should be upgraded to use permission_resources_sql() . The datasette.permission_allowed() internal method - this should be replaced with datasette.allowed() Logic that grants access to the "root" actor can be removed. | 92 | |
| 99 | 99 | Permissions are now actions | The register_permissions() hook shoud be replaced with register_actions() . Old code: @hookimpl def register_permissions(datasette): return [ Permission( name="explain-sql", abbr=None, description="Can explain SQL queries", takes_database=True, takes_resource=False, default=False, ), Permission( name="annotate-rows", abbr=None, description="Can annotate rows", takes_database=True, takes_resource=True, default=False, ), Permission( name="view-debug-info", abbr=None, description="Can view debug information", takes_database=False, takes_resource=False, default=False, ), ] The new Action does not have a default= parameter. Here's the equivalent new code: from datasette import hookimpl from datasette.permissions import Action from datasette.resources import DatabaseResource, TableResource @hookimpl def register_actions(datasette): return [ Action( name="explain-sql", description="Explain SQL queries", resource_class=DatabaseResource, ), Action( name="annotate-rows", description="Annotate rows", resource_class=TableResource, ), Action( name="view-debug-info", description="View debug information", ), ] The abbr= is now optional and defaults to None . For actions that apply to specific resources (like databases or tables), specify the resource_class instead of takes_parent and takes_child . Note that view-debug-info does not specify a resource_class because it applies globally. | 92 | |
| 100 | 100 | permission_allowed() hook is replaced by permission_resources_sql() | The following old code: @hookimpl def permission_allowed(action): if action == "permissions-debug": return True Can be replaced by: from datasette.permissions import PermissionSQL @hookimpl def permission_resources_sql(action): return PermissionSQL.allow(reason="datasette-allow-permissions-debug") A .deny(reason="") class method is also available. For more complex permission checks consult the documentation for that plugin hook: https://docs.datasette.io/en/latest/plugin_hooks.html#permission-resources-sql-datasette-actor-action | 92 |
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