Effects of the renewal on the StatFin database and its interfaces
The renewal influences the structure of the StatFin database, publishing of database tables and communicating about tables, browsing of tables and all links in the database. Changing of links has an effect especially on interface (API) use.
These instructions first describe the general changes concerning the database and information is given about link changes at the end of the instructions.
Database is the primary publishing site of data
New statistical data are published as tables in the StatFin database. In future, the database will be the primary publishing site of data and new data are first published there. The delay in publishing the data on the website after publishing in the database is at most tens of seconds.
For most users this delay is not significant, but if you need the data particularly fast, we recommend that you retrieve the data by means of the database interface or saved searches.
Preliminary data on the updating schedule of tables
As a result of the renewal, we will start publishing data on the updating times of database tables on the Future releases page as well. Read more about notifications of release times.
New way to browse database tables
Tables in the StatFin database can be browsed on the new website according to topics and statistics. The table listing shows information on the variables contained in the table.
Database tables can easily be accessed from the web pages from more places than before. The statistics page contains a direct link to the tables of the statistics, and on the page of each release you can easily access the tables updated at the time when the release is published.
Main database view will change
The main view of the StatFin database has previously contained a topic menu. In the following, the topic level will no longer be shown in StatFin, but the new start view of the database shows a list of all statistics that have tables in the database.
To browse database tables by topic, you can view them on our website on the listing page of database tables. You can also access topic-specific listings on the web page of each topic.
Will the content of the database remain unchanged?
Most of the tables in the StatFin database will remain unchanged, but not all. We describe changes in the tables and their contents on the page Changes in the StatFin database.
Links to the database and database tables will change
The address of the StatFin database and all table links will change. If you use database tables through our web pages, you can find the tables on the new pages and you do not have to do anything because of changes in links.
If you have saved tables in your bookmarks/favourites, made saved searches or you use StatFin through interfaces, please read on about the following changes.
Some of the following instructions are of highly technical nature and concern only database power users and interface users.
Change in the database address
The address of the StatFin database changes. The new addresses are
https://pxdata.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/[recommended address format]https://statfin.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/fi/StatFin/https://pxweb2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/fi/StatFin/
On Statistics Finland's pages we will start using the address starting with pxdata.stat.fi, but you can use any of the new addresses, also in application interface calls
What will happen to previous table links and interface queries?
Database links beginning with pxnet2 will be disabled completely on 16 November 2022. The change also applies to interface calls and saved searches.
Changes in table links
Because the database no longer shows the topic level, the combination of letters describing the topic is removed from the table links.
The topic identifier can be found in the old links in the second last part of URL before the identifier of the statistics. For example, the identifier of the topic population is vrm and it can be seen in the following link between the texts StatFin and vaerak:
https://pxnet2.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__vrm__vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11ra.px/
There is no topic identifier in the new table links. The new address of the example table is as follows:
https://pxdata.stat.fi/PXWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11ra.px
Please note that in the second last part there are two underline characters between the letters StatFin and the identifier of the statistics: StatFin__vaerak
Changes in links to saved searches
It has been and it will be possible in future to make saved searches to database tables by means of which you can go back to the tables you have previously made. Links to saved searches will also change in the renewal.
At Statistics Finland we aim to correct the links of saved searches so that users would have access to the table requested with the old links. Unfortunately, not all corrections will be successful and part of the saved searches must be made again.
Instructions will be given on how to make saved searches in the User instructions for PxWeb statistical databases.
Changes to application interface calls
The StatFin database can be used through an interface. Because the table addresses change, the address to which the JSON query code is sent also changes.
You can retrieve new addresses from the database on the new server at each table under API query for this table, or change the query addresses as follows:
- At the beginning of URL replace the pxnet2 character string with pxdata.
- Because the topic level is removed from the addresses of database tables, remove the topic identifier from URL. The topic identifier is the third last section of URL in the current addresses before the identifier of the statistics.
In this example, the previous address for the application interface call of a population structure table is:
https://pxnet2.stat.fi:443/PXWeb/api/v1/en/StatFin_vrm_vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11ra.px
After the renewal, the table address will be like this:
https://pxdata.stat.fi:443/PxWeb/api/v1/en/StatFin/vaerak/statfin_vaerak_pxt_11ra.px
Further information about interfaces
Read more about Statistics Finland's database interfaces on the page Open database data.
Last updated 14 Nov 2022