Foodcodes, Was: Re: [Babase] FPSAMPS Kidcontact and Kidsuckle blanks

Susan Alberts babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Tue, 9 Nov 2004 12:26:05 +0300


Good thanks.

Susan

>On 2004.10.27 06:10 Susan Alberts wrote:
>>This is a very belated reply, sorry.
>
>Likewise, likewise.  :-)
>
>>
>>>What does "-  If "Other social" is recorded in the point sample, 
>>>the nature of the social  interaction is recorded..    -  If the 
>>>food being eaten is Other or Unknown, notes on the food are 
>>>recorded."
>>>mean?  That is, what's recorded where?  Is this a demography note?
>>>I didn't think Psions took comments.
>>
>>
>>There is an option to enter an extended comment. They press *, then 
>>O, then describe the interaction. There was no way to get around 
>>this one relatively free-form type of entry.
>
>Ah, right.  These are the ADLIBS table.  Not a problem.
>
>>
>>>
>>>Which reminds me, arn't foodcodes single character codes that
>>>are 'lumped' together as a muti-character string?
>>
>>
>>Yes basically although it is not the case that each column within 
>>the field is equivalent across food codes.
>>
>>>This will make them hard to validate and I'd imagine odd
>>>to query.
>>
>>
>>They are odd to query, it is not at all trivial. However, the codes 
>>themselves are part of a rather deeply entrenched system of food 
>>codes that were started decades ago by Stuart so i don't think 
>>changing is a good option at this point.
>
>I'm making them into a table.  This makes them easy to validate and
>you can add new ones when you like.  We can make additional columns
>in the food code table to make things easier to query if you've
>got catagories, or rather alternate-catagories, as I've added a Ftype
>column and another support table (FOODTYPES) to support the
>foodcodes.  This should help with querying.
>
>I'm using your attached document to populate the FOODCODES and
>FOODTYPES table for the conversion.
>
>Karl <kop@meme.com>
>Free Software:  "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
>                  -- Robert A. Heinlein
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Susan Alberts, Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, 
Durham NC 27708
919-660-7272 (phone), 919-660-7293 (FAX)