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Ask HN: Best way to put a database on the web?

by djb_hackernews on 2/2/19, 2:33 PM with 5 comments

I have some data that is currently in an xlsx. I'd like to put this data on the web, as is, so that it is queryable by anyone via a UI. ie someone visits mydatabase.com and they can perform ad hoc queries (SQL, some slick UI, whatever works) on the data.

The data is not big, it's a single sheet with about 20 columns and less than a million rows (however the xlsx file is too large to import in to google drive sheets, and attempts to save as csv have failed). I don't care if it is SQL, cloud based, some other service. I'm not concerned about cost. I don't need authentication or authorization or anything. I'm optimizing for just getting the data out there and ease of querying. I would like to be able to see visitor analytics if possible.

Before I go writing a webapp to do this, there must be something off the shelf?

  • by ben165 on 2/2/19, 2:48 PM

    Oh dear, I think your file is already too big to handle it easily. How big is the file?

    First, get the data somehow to plain text. LibreOffice is maybe able to convert it to an CSV file. Otherwise you have to open it with Python (for example) to export the data to a text file or directly to a database.

    Best way is to find a web hoster which allows you to make the database public. With this solution you can transfer the XLSX columns one by one (with Python) to your online database. After finishing change the database from public to local.

    An easy UI in PHP isn't really a thing.

  • by 0xdeadc0de on 2/2/19, 4:37 PM

  • by karmakaze on 2/2/19, 6:13 PM

    Try looking for a separate xlsx to csv converter that doesn't have the limitation saving to csv. That'll get you part way to being able to import the csv into a db or something you can query.

    Edit: you'll likely have better luck with offline utilities, online ones could fail on size.

  • by ablerman on 2/2/19, 3:23 PM

    Something like indexDB our one of the layers on top if it are probably good solutions.

    CSV is probably easier to work with, if you're having trouble converting from xlsx to csv, DM me and I can help out.

    My email is in my profile.