Local database setup.
If you want to develop on your local system without any Docker containers then you'll need to set up MySQL on your host OS and run the steps below.
Remove the password
Remove the password for root by opening the MySQL shell with mysql and running:
ALTER USER 'root'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED WITH mysql_native_password BY '';
We do this for convenience so we can run mysql commands without providing a password each time. You can also set a password, just make sure you include it in your .env file later.
Import the latest data extract
Daily exports from the live OWID database are published here and can be used for testing:
| File | Description | Size (compressed) |
|---|---|---|
| owid_metadata.sql.gz | Table structure and metadata, everything except data_values |
~15 MB |
| owid_chartdata.sql.gz | All data values used by published visualizations | >200MB |
This script will create a database, then download and import all OWID charts and their data (might take a while!):
./db/downloadAndCreateDatabase.sh
Note that the data_values table will be incomplete – it will only contain data used in charts. In production, this table is >20GB (uncompressed) and contains unreviewed and undocumented data, so we currently don't offer a full export of it.
Inspecting the database
On macOS, we recommend using Sequel Ace (it's free). DBeaver is also free, works well also and is available on more operating systems.
We also have a rough sketch of the schema as it was on November 2019 (there may be slight changes).
