Sets

It is easy to imagine situations where a field may need to contain multiple values. A bibliographic reference nearly always has more than one author; a locus can have many alleles. In ACEDB the ability to produce a set when multiple values are entered is provided by default for nearly every kind of field.

Set creation is straightforward for labels followed by solitary fields like "Remarks" in ?Tshirt. As new data is read in it is added to the set, which appears as a (vertical) list in a text window. The most recently added data appears last. The dependency of order on entry history may not matter for simple remarks but could be critical in other contexts--as in the Author field for a publication, where absolute order is meaningful.

Here is an example of set creation. First, the data:

TShirt : sam06
Remarks "this is the first remark"
Remarks "this is the second remark"
Remarks "this is the third remark"

Second, the data as it appears in a text window (note order):

What happens if you enter

TShirt : sam07
Remarks "this is the first remark"
Remarks "this is the second remark"
Remarks "this is the first remark"

You should obtain the result

Again, the most recently added new data appears last. But remember that ACEDB recognizes if there is an attempt to enter the same data twice; such attempts are ignored.

Show me the whole t-shirt model again.

Back to Table of Contents