Here’s how to publish your tabular data as Tabular Data Packages. There are 4 simple steps:
- Create a folder (directory) - this folder will hold your “data package”
- Put your data into CSV (comma-separated values) files and add them to that folder
- Add a
datapackage.jsonfile to hold some information about the data package and the data in it e.g. a title, who created it, how other people can use it (licensing), etc - Upload the data package online
1. Create a Directory (Folder)
We’ll assume you know how to do this!
2. Create your CSV files
A CSV is a really common and simple file format for storing a (single) table of data (for example, a single sheet in a spreadsheet). If you’ve got more than one table you can save multiple CSV files, one for each for table.
Put the CSV files in the directory you created - we suggest putting them in a subdirectory called data so that your base directory does not get too cluttered up.
You can produce CSV files from almost any application that handles data including spreadsheets like Excel and databases like MySQL or Postgresql.
You can find out more about CSVs and how to produce them by taking a look at the dedicated CSV page or by doing a quick search online for CSV + the name of your tool.
3. Add a datapackage.json file
The datapackage.json is a small file in JSON format that gives a bit of
information about your dataset. You’ll need to create this file and then place
it in the directory you created.
There are three options for creating the datapackage.json:
Option 1: Use the online datapackage.json creator tool - just answer a few questions and give it your data files and it will spit out a datapackage.json for you to include in your project
Option 2: Do it yourself - if you’re familiar with JSON you can just create this yourself. Take a look at the Data Package and Simple Data Format specs.
Option 3:* Use our Data Package Manager tool for the command line if you are comfortable with that interface (requires node.js).
4. Put the data package online
See Putting Your Data Package online
Appendix - Examples of Existing Tabular Data Packages
Pay special attention to the scripts directory (and look at the commit logs!)
