[Babase] Ranks data errors

Karl O. Pinc babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Thu, 03 Feb 2005 23:48:55 +0000


On 02/03/2005 04:44:36 PM, Susan Alberts wrote:

> I don't know  enough about what happened when we made the changes to  
> know how to interpret the errors or, more importantly, how to correct  
> them. However, it seems that having Leah enter new data into these  
> corrupted tables is not the right approach. Can someone shed light or  
> should we have a conference call?

As far as updating a 'bad' ranks table goes, the program is _supposed_
to completely destroy and re-create the ranks for any given month.
The data from the prior month is used as a starting point for the
next month's ranking but the operator scroodles the data as desired.
So, you need to watch out for bad initial data if you're doing the
month, but otherwise should be ok.

Of course if there's a bug in the program anything goes.

IIRC I corrected a serious problem in the ranker program after it
had been used for 6 months -- from 13/3/03 to 15/9/03.  The comment
says that the bug was that the ranker was deleting ranks of the
wrong ranktype.  Does anybody recall anything
more?  Could these data errors be leftover from that or from
whatever was done to recover the deleted data?  I recall
troubles finding a backup from which to recover.

Karl <kop@meme.com>
Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
                 -- Robert A. Heinlein