rackfocus 1.2.0

Requirements

All that’s required to run Rackfocus is Python 3 (I’m pretty certain as low as 3.4 should work, possibly lower). It does not depend on any third-party packages.

Installing + Running

You can find Rackfocus on PyPI using pip:

pip install rackfocus

That should get you set up with a rackfocus command that can be invoked from anywhere like so:

rackfocus ./path/to/working/dir ./path/to/output/dir

Rackfocus will use the working directory (first argument) to place datasets temporarily. Working data will be contained in a new directory that Rackfocus creates, which will be destroyed after the compilation is complete.

Rackfocus’s output is a neat little SQLite database in a file named rackfocus_out.db, which is placed under the path specified as the second argument.

To surf through the database generated by Rackfocus, open it using an SQLite command line utility like so:

sqlite3 rackfocus_out.db

At the SQLite prompt, view all tables using:

.tables

View schema for a table using:

.schema title_akas

Tip - Schedule It!

During its development, Rackfocus was intended to be scheduled. Say you enjoy data visualization and always want the latest IMDb data ready to dip into. Simply set up the job to run periodically on any computer, perhaps a Raspberry Pi. Use cron or another scheduling mechanism to update data daily or weekly!

The database file that gets generated as output has a reliable, unchanging file name. That way, it gets overwritten when scheduled, without requiring any cleanup.

Examples

Get all feature films starring Evangeline Lilly with an IMDb rating of 7.0 or higher:

select
    distinct primaryTitle
from
    name_basics
    join title_principals on name_basics.nconst=title_principals.nconst
    join title_basics on title_basics.tconst=title_principals.tconst
    join title_ratings on title_basics.tconst=title_ratings.tconst
where
    primaryName='Evangeline Lilly'
    and titleType='movie'
    and category='actress'
    and averageRating > 7.0;

Get all feature films directed by Michael Bay:

select
    distinct primaryTitle
from
    title_basics
    join title_crew on title_basics.tconst=title_crew.tconst
    join name_basics on title_crew.nconst=name_basics.nconst
where
    primaryName='Michael Bay'
    and job='director'
    and titleType='movie';

Get all comedy feature films with an IMDb rating between 4.0 and 6.0, released in the 21st century:

select
    distinct primaryTitle
from
    title_basics
    join title_ratings on title_basics.tconst=title_ratings.tconst
where
    averageRating > 4.0
    and averageRating < 6.0
    and genres like '%Comedy%'
    and startYear >= 2000
    and titleType='movie';