Dolt quickstart guide

This is a one-page guide to getting you started with Dolt as quickly as possible. If you're trying to participate in a data bounty, this will get you up and running. We think bounties are the most engaging way to get started using Dolt and DoltHub and understand how it all works.

This guide is intended for new data bounty participants, and is geared to that use case. You can find more complete documentation on how to use Dolt in the README and in the DoltHub documentation.

Install Dolt

% sudo bash -c 'curl -L https://github.com/dolthub/dolt/releases/latest/download/install.sh | bash'

For windows installation, see here.

Configure dolt

% dolt config --global --add user.email [email protected]
% dolt config --global --add user.name "YOUR NAME"

Fork the data bounty

Forking a database makes a private copy for you to edit. Find the database you want to edit, then click the "Fork" button on the top left.

Clone your fork

Cloning your fork of the database downloads it to your local computer so you can make changes to it. Click "Clone" to find the command to copy and paste into your terminal. This clone command will be different for every fork, so you can't just copy and paste the command in the text below.

Run the command, then cd into the database directory.

% dolt clone dolthub/hospital-price-transparency
% cd hospital-price-transparency

Inspect the data

Get familiar with the tables and their columns. The easiest way to do this is by using SQL commands. show tables and describe <tablename> are good commands to use when exploring a new database.

% dolt sql
# Welcome to the DoltSQL shell.
# Statements must be terminated with ';'.
# "exit" or "quit" (or Ctrl-D) to exit.
hospital_price_transparency> show tables;
+-----------+
| Table     |
+-----------+
| cpt_hcpcs |
| hospitals |
| prices    |
+-----------+
hospital_price_transparency> describe hospitals;
+----------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| Field          | Type         | Null | Key | Default | Extra |
+----------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
| npi_number     | char(16)     | NO   | PRI |         |       |
| name           | varchar(256) | YES  |     |         |       |
| url            | varchar(512) | YES  |     |         |       |
| street_address | varchar(512) | YES  |     |         |       |
| city           | varchar(64)  | YES  |     |         |       |
| state          | varchar(32)  | YES  |     |         |       |
| zip_code       | varchar(16)  | YES  |     |         |       |
| publish_date   | date         | YES  |     |         |       |
+----------------+--------------+------+-----+---------+-------+
hospital_price_transparency> select npi_number, name, street_address from hospitals limit 3;
+------------+------------------------------------+---------------------+
| npi_number | name                               | street_address      |
+------------+------------------------------------+---------------------+
| 1003873225 | The Specialty Hospital Of Meridian | 1314 19th Ave       |
| 1023061405 | Grandview Medical Center           | 3690 Grandview Pkwy |
| 1023180502 | Medical City Dallas                | 7777 Forest Ln      |
+------------+------------------------------------+---------------------+
hospital_price_transparency> exit
Bye

Add some data

There are two main ways to add data into your copy of the database. You can either import from files, or you can add data by writing scripts and inserting rows with SQL statements.

Importing files

Use the dolt table import command to import CSV or JSON files. Use the -u option to update the table (instead of replacing the contents).

% dolt table import -u prices hospital_prices.csv

Starting a SQL server

If you want to write a script to insert data with python or another programming language, start a SQL server on the command line:

% dolt sql-server
Starting server with Config HP="localhost:3306"|T="28800000"|R="false"|L="info"

Then connect to the database with any standard MySQL connector and make your edits.

See your changes

After you've inserted some data, you can inspect the changes you made using dolt diff. If you added a lot of rows, use the --summary flag to get a summary instead.

% dolt diff
% dolt diff --summary

Commit your changes

These commands work like git, if you know git. If you don't know git, don't worry! Most people who know git don't actually know git either!

% dolt add .
% dolt commit -m "This message describes my changes"

You can repeat these steps as many times as you have more changes to add:

1. Add data
2. Commit your changes

Every time you commit it creates a checkpoint you can roll back to if you mess up later.

Push your changes back to DoltHub and create a PR

When you're done adding data, push the database back to DoltHub and submit a pull request (PR) to merge them back into the original fork.

% dolt push origin master

Respond to PR review feedback

Your PR will be reviewed by the people running the bounty, and they may ask you to make changes. If they do, then go ahead and make your changes on your machine, then dolt push those new commits back to DoltHub and your existing PR will automatically be updated with them.

Questions? Still need help?

Come hang out with us on our Discord, where the team that builds Dolt and lots of other customers are available to chat and ask questions. If this guide is missing something obvious, come tell us there!