Thursday 10/07/2021
Slept as late as I ever have this year: looked at my watch at 5:45am and thought, OK, get another 20 minutes. And next woke up at 6:40. Also did not do the aerobics this morning. Off to Yosemite at 9am. Where I tidied up a couple of database records, and then helped to pack and store several objects. After lunch, Aurora asked if anyone wanted to do boring database work and, since I had brought my computer glasses, I volunteered.
The boring work was, there are about 16,000 objects in the database that have “redundant child records”. The current system, when anyone edits the Object Name field, creates a child record with the previous name. Some notion of a history trail? The people creating the new database have asked that these be eliminated as it will assist the conversion process. For context, 16K is less than 10% of the total.
A previous volunteer had created a Word document that is simply a list of object catalog numbers for objects with redundant child records. Imagine a list of 16,000, 9-digit numbers,
102610484
102610493
and so forth. So with that open in Word, and the Mimsy database program open, it turns out to be possible do this with mouse clicks and keystrokes as follows. I did this for 3 hours today so I know it pretty well.
- double-click the next number
- control-c to copy
- alt-tab to switch to Mimsy
- control-v to paste the number in the catalog number field
- F8 to perform a search
- take a sip of tea while the search completes
- click three lines down on the first child record
- shift-F12 to delete the child record
- Enter to confirm delete child record
- repeat from #8 until all child records gone (typically 2-4)
- F10 to save the record
- F7 to start a search
- click in the catalog number field (preparing for #4)
- alt-tab to switch back to Word
- repeat from #1
I am going to bring my earbuds next time so I can listen to music or a podcast while I do this.
Codgerville 