FEC_DATA

Maintains a PostgresSQL database of the FEC's FTP data, and some limited scripts for data retrieval. Going to work on bringing this project back up-to-date -- ht REQUIREMENTS

In orderd to properly run and setup FEC_DATA you must have the following:

Postgresql 9.2 or newer
sqlalchemy for python
pandas for python
psycopg2 for python

SETUP

First edit config.py to your preferences, the file is documented.

INIT

Now run make createuser

You will be prompted as shown below:

Enter password for new role: 
Enter it again:

These two fields are for the new database user you listed in config.py

Now you will be prompted for your postgresql password. If none, just hit enter. The command will exit successfully if no further text appears on the screen.

You may see text like so: createuser: creation of new role failed: ERROR: role "foo" already exists

This can be ignored.

Now, run make.

This will download and extract the files from the FEC's FTP website (ftp://ftp.fec.gov), then will create new databases based on the information provided in your config.py file, and populate those databases with the information downloaded from the FEC's website.

This process will take several hours if maintaining the entire 1998-2014 year range.

Errors will be stored in ./db/errors/ if any occur.

GEO DATA

Run make creategeo

This will create a database of geolocation data points to make searching the data easier.

SEARCH AND RETRIEVAL