Formal metadata: information and software

Enumerated Domain Helper

Also available: [Short, terse form]
Filling out an extensive Enumerated_Domain can be tiresome. For each possible value, you need to specify what the value is, what it means, and who or what authority originated the value and its definition. Each set should go into its own Enumerated_Domain to keep the components together and properly related. This isn't hard to do if you have only a few values. But where there are more than ten such values, they are often easier to write as a table.
This form converts a simple textual table into metadata elements that can be selected from the web browser and pasted into a metadata record. The table should have one value and definition per line, like this:

A1: Steak sauce
B4: Previous time period
CU: Parting phrase

Note the colon character between each value and its definition. You can use a space if all of the values are single words, and you can use a tab, hyphen, or equal sign. Also you can put any number of spaces before the value, or between the value and its definition:

        A1	Steak sauce
        B4	Previous time period
              CU	Parting phrase

The form rewrites each line as an Enumerated_Domain like this:

Attribute_Domain_Values:
  Enumerated_Domain:
    Enumerated_Domain_Value: A1
    Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition: Steak sauce
  Enumerated_Domain:
    Enumerated_Domain_Value: B4
    Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition: Previous time period
  Enumerated_Domain:
    Enumerated_Domain_Value: CU
    Enumerated_Domain_Value_Definition: Parting phrase

You can select the output text using your mouse and paste it into a suitable metadata editor (Xtme or Tkme, for example), or into a text editor if that's how you create metadata.

The delimiter separates each value from its definition. Tab is convenient here, but you can use space or colon as well; if you need to use some other character, enter it in the small box provided.

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URL: http://(none)/tools/metadata/tools/doc/ctc/edom.shtml
Page Contact Information: Peter Schweitzer
Page Last Modified: Friday, 19-Oct-2007 12:26:37 EDT