Sign up
Go to one of the Babase administrators (Jake or Willi) and ask for access. You will need a Duke NetID; if you are not already at Duke, Jake will sponsor you for a guest account. In addition, it is not necessary but can be useful to have a Unix account on papio depending on what type of work you will be doing. Jake can do this for you.
While you're at it, it's important to sign up on the Babase mailing list and a good idea to get yourself a login on this wiki as well.
Yes, there are a lot of logins to keep track of. Each person has a Duke NetID, a login to the database, a login on this wiki, and an email address and password used to sign up for the mailing list. All of these are different logins, with, possibly but not necessarily, different usernames and different passwords.
Tour Babase
This section is out of date and needs to be updated. Someday.
Download and follow the document Getting_Started.pdf It will guide you through the basics of navigating the PPA interface and show you how to browse Babase tables and views. Some of the content is old, e.g. the suggestion to use Mozilla Sea Monkey instead of Internet Explorer. The core content is still true, however.
Write Queries
Queries, written in the SQL query langage, are used to obtain data from the database. It is highly recommended that users begin by reading Babase's SQL tutorial. The tutorial on the SQL language found in the PostgreSQL documentation may also be helpful. As you read, try out some queries in the Babase phpPgAdmin web interface by clicking on the "SQL" link in the upper right hand corner after logging in and choosing the babase database, babase schema. You should also try writing queries using our specialized SQL program.
Download Babase data for further analysis
Downloading the results of a query can be done by clicking the Download option at the bottom of the page where your query return appears. The results can also be saved in a table. Babase users each have their own area of the database, called a schema, where they can create their own tables. To save the results of a query into a table, "newtable", in your schema, add "INTO yourlogin.newtable" to your SQL query, as documented in the SELECT INTO documentation. The phpPgAdmin web interface can then transfer the contents of your new table to your desktop. Go into your schema, the one named with your database login, and click on the "newtable" table you just created. Click on the "Export" link at the upper right. Choose "Data Only" and a format of either "CSV" or "Tabbed" if you wish to use the data in Excel later.
Learn more
The sections of the PostgreSQL documentation of initial interest are as follows:
section I Tutorial
subsection I.2 The SQL Language
section II The SQL Language
section VI Reference
subsection VI.I SQL Commands
More resources can be found on the BabaseHelp page.