Matt, Yes, you can create and query numeric fields within Arches v3. To confirm this, just look at the Measurement form in v3 to see that numeric fields are supported.
Based on your summary, it sounds like you want to modify the default graphs in v3, which is akin to altering the database schema in a traditional web application. That's a perfectly acceptable thing to do in v3. And like a traditional web app, if you alter the database schema, you'll need to update (or create new) data entry forms and query logic in your app to take advantage of your new schema. So, you IT support folks are correct: in V3 you'll need to do a bit of coding to reflect your new graph (e.g.: database) changes and the new query functionality that you want. FYI, this all changes in Arches v4. In the latest version of Arches, you can update graphs and Arches will automatically create new data entry forms, update the search (query) function, and automatically update the content of reports to reflect your new graph design. One last comment: your use case sounds more like managing dates than managing integers. In fact, its sounds like you're talking about "fuzzy" dates. That is, describing things that happened in the year 1100 BC (-1100 in your example). Implicit in this kind of discussion is the uncertainty in the date. That is, 1100 BC is like an approximation (could the real value be 1099 BC? of 1105BC?). These kinds of temporal data are quite a bit more sophisticated than simply treating dates as negative integers. The Arches team is currently working on a new data type to represent fuzzy dates using something called the "Extended Date Time Format" (see https://github.com/inukshuk/edtf-ruby for implementation details). This will extend the ability of Arches v4 to record and query on incomplete dates like -1100 (note the lack of day and month, which would make this a true date), as well as the uncertainty associated with fuzzy dates. Hope this helps. Cheers, Dennis On Wednesday, January 17, 2018 at 1:17:10 AM UTC-8, M Hobson wrote: > > Dear all, > > Is it possible to use and to easily create and query numeric fields within > ARCHES v3? > > I am working for a project at the moment that has been using ARCHES v3 for > a number of years and all of the dating is handled as text fields e.g. > 'Roman', 'Iron Age' etc. This is causing us problems when we want to > implement our database in partner countries that use different labeling > systems. One solution would be to use integer fields for start and end > dates. I have worked on other databases in the past which have made use of > negative integers for BC dates and positive integers for AD dates. I am > being told, however, by our IT support that ARCHES cannot support this? To > be precise I am being told that I myself would have to write the front-end > and back-end logic to handle the fields that I would like to implement. > That is, some new code would have to be written in order to handle a > numeric search in ARCHES v3. Obviously the integer fields can be created in > postgres and I am comfortable with how to do this, but I really need some > step-by-step help in order to understand how to get ARCHES to integrate > with such fields. > > To give you an idea of the scale of the problem, in the midst of the > discussion about chronology I have realized that all of the fields > currently being used in the project database avoid the use of integers. > Numbers of archaeological features are recorded as text e.g. 1 to 5, 6-20, > or 21-50! This leaves us with no way of querying in a quantified way e.g. > Return all sites where number of theatres is greater than 1. > > Any help with this issue would be most appreciated. > > Matt Hobson > > > > > > -- -- To post, send email to archesproject@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe, send email to archesproject+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more information, visit https://groups.google.com/d/forum/archesproject?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Arches Project" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to archesproject+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
