[Babase] Conversion from Babase 1.0 to 2.0 Update

Lacey Maryott lacey.maryott at duke.edu
Thu May 3 13:09:17 EDT 2007


Hello all,
   After a conversation Susan had with Karl this morning, and a 
subsequent conversation between Susan, Tabby and myself, a new idea is 
being tossed around for the process of moving from Babase 1.0/foxpro to 
Babase 2.0.  The decision is prioritizing the factors which are holding 
us back from moving into Babase 2.0.  The biggest issue is seperating 
the issue of moving from Babase 1.0 to
Babase 2.0 from the issue of having DBF census files which need to 
somehow be put into the database. 
    One of the things that was put on the list of "Things to do before 
we go live with 2.0" was getting some old census data from Alto's group 
converted over in foxpro. These files are already formatted as DBFs, and 
it would ultimately be easier to do their conversion in Foxpro and then 
move them into Babase.  However, the number of conversion errors this 
could generate is not likely to be trivial.  It would be nice to 
eliminate this as a factor limiting the move to Babase 2.0.  Susan 
proposed we evaluate the work it would take to convert these DBF files 
to XLS files which are compatible with the upload program to be used in 
Babase 2.0.  I have reviewed that with Tabby and while it will take some 
time, it is very feasible. 

    So, the tentative game plan is:
1. TRY to do the foxpro upload/conversion in Babase 1.0.
2. If the conversion errors are minimal, they will be fixed and the move 
to 2.0 will proceed with the updated census.
3. If this generates a large amount of conversion errors, in the 
interest of time, we will forego this update for now, and revert back to 
the previous census table and move ahead with the conversion to Babase 2.0.
4. I will then take up the task of converting the DBF files to XLS 
files, and when that process is complete, we can us the new census 
upload program for Babase 2.0 to in a sense "update" the census 
information to include these data.

Does anyone have any input on this process?  Sorry to be so verbose!

Have a great day!
Lacey

-- 
Lacey Maryott
Department of Biology
Duke University
ph: 919-660-7306
fax: 919-660-7293
Lacey.Maryott at duke.edu 



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