[Babase] Fixing census data errors

Karl O. Pinc babase@www.eco.princeton.edu
Mon, 28 Feb 2005 16:41:01 +0000


On 02/27/2005 01:31:56 PM, Catherine Markham wrote:
> Hi Karl,
> 
> We've recently discovered several errors in the census date recorded  
> on the field datasheets.

> My question for you is how exactly do I handle these changes in  
> BaBase?  For the times where census dates were recorded incorrectly,  
> can I manually make changes in the census table and then run reinterp  
> to fix members?  For the instances where a date was completely missed  
> from a census, I'm thinking I could make a census dbf file with only  
> that one date and then run valcen, upcen, and reinterp.  Is that  
> right?

What the system wants is for you to make the changes in
the census table and then run reinterp.  There's nothing wrong
with making manual changes directly to the table.  I can't
speak to what the best procedures would be from your recordkeeping
perspective.  I imagine that making a census dbf could help.
In theory, you'd run the integrit program to check the database
integrity after making a spate of manual change to be sure that
you didn't make some mistake by accident.  In practice, as it's
not been run and probably is not consistent with the way the
data's been entered, it's not worthwile.

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