I am totally lost with the OpenFDA API. I've downloaded the API from Github, run the bootstrap.sh, run python setup.py install, and I have no clue what to do now.
My specific questions:
1. Downloading data
The API Reference page mentions a way to write code to download the data automatically, and then it gives me a nice bit of "download API query" code without every telling me how to use this code from my machine (this means: to download the dataset, not as a query to retrieve database information using search or connect. This was already covered in excellent detail and I understand it quite clearly).
2. Running the API Locally
When I navigate to api/faers/ and open the README.md file, the first instruction tells me to "Get an ES instance running locally with data in the FAERS mapping format."
Um, how do I do that?
If I proceed with the other steps, I get connection refused errors on step 4.
3. Querying from my machine
Similarly to question #1, I'm confused about how to query the database from my machine and especially how this relates to the API key. Can someone give me some example code or point to a tutorial on this---I can't seem to find any.
As a final note, I am not interested in any links to sites you have made that have already done this for me; I am only asking for help with setting it up for myself.
Thank you!