Every single dataset on Quandl is available via our API. The API is simple, consistent and completely free to use. Here’s a quick and easy guide to get you started.
This is not meant to be a formal reference for the Quandl API; merely a quick-start guide. To read the complete and definitive documentation, please click here.
To start using the Quandl API:
Sign up for a free API key
Synopsis
Here is an API call for FB stock data in CSV format:
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/data.csv
Here is the same call, with some additional parameters appended:
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/data.csv?column_index=4&exclude_column_names=true&rows=3&start_date=2012-11-01&end_date=2013-11-30&order=asc&collapse=quarterly&transform=rdiff
The second call gets FB stock data, but only column 4 (closing prices); it skips column names, truncates the data at 3 rows, selects only data between 2012-11-01 and 2013-11-30, arranges the dates in ascending order, down-samples daily data to quarterly, and computes percentage changes.
API usage is free for registered users; just append your API key to your call like this: You can find your API key on your Quandl account settings page. (For concision, we will not be including the api_key parameter in the remaining examples on this page). To download a dataset, you will need to know its “Quandl code”. In the above example, you downloaded a dataset with the Quandl code “WIKI/FB”. Every Quandl code has 2 parts: the database code (“WIKI”) which specifies where the data comes from, and the dataset code (“FB”) which identifies the specific time series you want. You can find Quandl codes on our website, using our data browser. You can get data in CSV, XML or JSON formats. Just append your preferred format to your Quandl code. You can customize the data you receive by passing optional parameters with your API call. Here are some of the available options: to specify the order in which data is returned and/or to return only data from column m to return only the first n rows of data to return only data rows in CSV to sample observations at your desired frequency Use to get changes, % changes, cumulative sums, or returns from 100 To see a full list of options and their detailed behaviour, please visit our API reference. You can use the API to get metadata for the dataset you need, in JSON format, like this: Or if you prefer XML format, like this: You can get both data and metadata in one call like this: Or this: For premium (subscriber-only) databases, you can download the entire database in a single call, like this: If you just want the last day’s worth of data, do this: For a list of all databases on Quandl, do this: For a list of datasets in a given database, do this: This is not meant to be a complete reference for the Quandl API. See our full API documentation for that.https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/data.csv?api_key=YOURAPIKEYHERE
Quandl Codes
Data Formats
CSV
.csv
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/data.csv
XML
.xml
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/data.xml
JSON
.json
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/data.json
Data Manipulation
Sort Order
Use
"order=asc|desc"
Date Range
Use
"start_date=yyyy-mm-dd"
"end_date=yyyy-mm-dd"
Specific Columns
Use
"column_index=m"
Truncated Rows
Use
"rows=n"
Data Only
Use
"exclude_column_names=true"
Data Frequency
Use
"collapse=none|daily|weekly|monthly|quarterly|annual"
Data Arithmetic
Use
"transform=none|diff|rdiff|cumul|normalize"
Getting Metadata
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/metadata.json
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB/metadata.xml
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB.json
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/datasets/WIKI/FB.xml
Downloading Lots of Data in One Call
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/databases/YC/data?download_type=complete
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/databases/YC/data?download_type=partial
Getting a list of datasets or databases
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/databases
https://www.quandl.com/api/v3/databases/WIKI/codes.json
Full Reference