DataDeploy DAS design problem

Hi,

A project requirement has come about, and I'm not sure how to go about fulfilling it.

Assume a DCR has the fields: id, type, forename, surname, hobby.
with the example data&colon; "123", "Cartoon Character", "Homer", "Simpson", "Drinking Duff"

From this, we'd like to create two tables:
ROOT TABLE -> id, type (e.g. "123", "Cartoon Character")
DATA TABLE -> id, name, value

The data table would have one row for each of the data items in the DCR, so for the above example we might have three rows:
"123", "forename", "Homer"
"123", "surname", "Simpson"
"123", "hobby", "Drinking Duff"

I've thought of a way of doing this with TeamSite 6.5, using FormAPI to build up a hidden replicant of name/value pairs when the form is saved, and then mapping this to the data table. However we have TeamSite 6.1 - typical eh?

Can anyone think of an alternative way of achieving this?

Find more posts tagged with

Comments

Adam Stoller

You're concerned about making tables in the DB - yes? not in the DCR or generated page - correct?
If so - can't you define the schema for your table in the DD config file to update two tables with select fields of data?

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Lozza

Thanks for the reply Fish,

That's right, I'm just concerned about the DB. I've tried to think of a schema way of doing this, but got into a bit of a mess. Thus:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?>
<dbschema>
<group name="root-table" root-group="yes">
<attrmap>
<column name="id" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" value-from-element="rootcontainer/0/id" allows-null="no" is-url="no"/>
<column name="type" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" value-from-element="rootcontainer/0/type" allows-null="yes" is-url="no"/>
</attmap>
<keys>
<primary-key>
<key-column name="id"/>
<primary-key>
</keys>
</group>
...
this data-table is tricky
...
<group name="data-table" root-group="no">
<attrmap>
<column name="id" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" value-from-element="rootcontainer/0/id" allows-null="no" is-url="no"/>
<column name="name" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" allows-null="no" is-url="no"/> ....... how could I specifiy the value to be "forename" here?
<column name="value" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" value-from-element="rootcontainer/0/forename" allows-null="yes" is-url="no"/>
...
it doesn't seem right to repeat the name / value fields here to get the result of one row for each item in the DCR, but here goes anyway
...
<column name="name" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" allows-null="no" is-url="no"/> ....... ditto for "surname"
<column name="value" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" value-from-element="rootcontainer/0/surname" allows-null="yes" is-url="no"/>
<column name="name" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" allows-null="no" is-url="no"/> ....... ditto for "hobby"
<column name="value" data-type="VARCHAR(255)" value-from-element="rootcontainer/0/hobby" allows-null="yes" is-url="no"/>
</attmap>
<keys>
... this needs some thought too, but one step at a time ;-)
</keys>
</group>
</dbschema>

Any pointers?

Adam Stoller

I don't profess to be an expert in DD config files - so I'll let someone else pipe in with details on how to make this work - but I'm pretty sure it can be done. (check the manuals for information on UDS / User Defined Schemas)

--fish
Senior Consultant, Quotient Inc.
http://www.quotient-inc.com

Lozza

I think what I was describing was "narrow tuples" and these aren't supported for deploying from templating records, only from extended attributes. Of course if anyone knows any different I'd be very pleased to hear about it ;-)