[Babase] conference call update

Karl O. Pinc kop at meme.com
Wed May 2 16:30:44 EDT 2007


On 05/02/2007 12:19:29 PM, kfenn wrote:

> Once the above changes/fixes occur, we have one more speedbump with  
> FoxPro before we can move exclusively to PPA.  The new files of "old"  
> census data that Jen Foreman has entered is in dbf form.  Karl says  
> trying to do an upload of  this into PPA  is not going to be  
> easy....the upload is best done in FoxPro.  I agree, but I can forsee  
> that this update may generate a substantial number of new errors when  
> we run through another conversion given that such a large bulk of  
> data is replacing old data.

The problem is in the new system's requirement that everything
be consistent all the time.  Simply deleting all the "old style"
census rows in preparation for replacing them with the actual
census data probably won't be allowed.  When the old rows are deleted
that will probably take individuals out of groups that other
parts of the database expect them to be in.

Of course there are work-arounds, probably involving turning
off consistency checks for a period of time.  But that'd
involve re-checking the data because turning the checks
back on won't catch any existing errors.  It sounds tricky.

The thing is, we've already got a mechanisim all worked out
that does exactly this.  It's the conversion process.

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



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