Use overview
------------

After downloading the Crossref data you can use *alexandria3k* through
its Python API or as a command-line tool.

These are the things you can do with *alexandria3k*.

-  Directly run ad hoc SQL queries on the Crossref data
-  Populate SQLite databases with Crossref, ORCID, DOAJ, and other data

   -  Select a horizontal subset of Crossref records

      -  Through an SQL expression
      -  By sampling a subset of the 26 thousand containers in the data
         set

   -  Select a horizontal subset of ORCID records by only loading those
      associated with already populated Crossref records
   -  Select a vertical subset of Crossref or ORCID columns

      -  Using the ``Table.Column`` or ``Table.*`` notation

Populating a database can take minutes (for a small, e.g. experimental,
subset), a few hours (to traverse the whole Crossref data set and obtain
a few thousands of records), or a couple of days (to produce a large
set, e.g. by selecting some columns).

After your populate an SQLite database and create suitable indexes, SQL
queries often run in seconds.

You can find many example of studies conducted with command-line
invocations in the
`examples <https://github.com/dspinellis/alexandria3k/tree/main/examples>`__
directory. Consider using the
`hello world <https://github.com/dspinellis/alexandria3k/tree/main/examples/authors-by-decade>`__ (work authors by decade) example as a starting point.
