[Babase] Census_demog view
Karl O. Pinc
kop at meme.com
Tue Feb 5 14:19:50 EST 2008
On 02/05/2008 11:16:21 AM, kfenn wrote:
> Karl,
>
> I think I need a quick conversation with you on the census_demog view
> because I'm have trouble with the upload.
I'll call now.
>
> Specifically:
>
> 1) You indicated that I probably don't have to put in the status but
> I don't see how the program will know this info is getting uploaded
> from a demog data set unless I put a "D" into that column for upload
> into the view....
It knows because it knows what to do if there's an existing census
(leave the 'C' if censused present, or change to D if censused absent)
and what to do if there's no existing census row (use D). Likewise,
it knows how to set the Cen flag.
or I could load everything into the DEMOG
> table....but the documentation says I'm supposed to maintain DEMOG
> into the CENSUS_DEMOG view
The trouble with using DEMOG is that then you need to create CENSUS
rows yourself, if they don't already exist. This is a pain.
You can use CENSUS_DEMOG or DEMOG_CENSUS. I think CENSUS_DEMOG is
better for manual changes, because it shows all CENSUS rows regardless
of whether there's a DEMOG row, but DEMOG_CENSUS is better for
updating from a file, just because it feels more right that you use
the view that only shows up when there's a DEMOG row.
>
> 2) I understand what the 'cen' field in CENSUS_DEMOG represents, but
> again, how would the program know that there was (or was not) a
> corresponding census row for that individual for that date unless I
> tell it?
It looks at the data already in the system. The new database
is intelligent in more ways than error checking.
I'm confused because UPDEMOG in Foxpro was a special
> program that took care of these issues. Using UPLOAD doesn't seem
> specific enough for the demog information to be cross-referenced and
> parsed out into the right tables.
I've moved as much magic as possible into the database itself. Just
as there's validation that is built in, regardless of how you
put the data in, PPA, some SQL statement, or a custom program,
there's also automatic updating that goes on. MEMBERS, automatic
M dates, and all the fiddly stuff having to do with demog and census
stuff.
Karl <kop at meme.com>
Free Software: "You don't pay back, you pay forward."
-- Robert A. Heinlein
More information about the Babase
mailing list