[webservices] ws_station network identifier

[John D. West]

OK, thanks. I was hoping that your internal database had a unique identifier
I could use to catch such changes and prevent duplicates.

     -- John


On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 5:45 PM, Chad Trabant <chad at iris.washington.edu>wrote:

>
> Got it. The network start/end dates don't change often but on occasion they
> do.  I think the most common case is when a temporary network code is
> extended to match an extended experiment time window.  The only other useful
> identifier that I can think of is the network description contained in the
> <Description> tags, although that is subject to change as well but also
> doesn't change often.  Perhaps by checking the description you can figure
> out when it's the same network versus something new more often than not.
>
> Chad
>
> On Jun 14, 2011, at 5:04 PM, John D. West wrote:
>
> That was what I assumed from the output of the web service. The question
> is: can a start date or end date EVER change? If an incorrect date is
> entered and then later corrected, I end up with overlapping networks because
> network code + start date + end date combine to form the unique identifier.
>
>      -- John
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 14, 2011 at 4:58 PM, Chad Trabant <chad at iris.washington.edu>wrote:
>
>>
>> Hello.
>>
>> In general, networks, like stations and channels, have the notion of a
>> start time and an end time.  For permanent networks there are normally not
>> breaks in the continuity.  For temporary networks there are often blocks of
>> years allocated for specific experiments, for example XY 2005-2006, XY
>> 2007-2009 and XY 2010-2010.  We would not consider those temporary networks
>> to be modifications of an existing network, but instead to be logically
>> different networks.  Essentially the network code combined with the start
>> and end time uniquely identifies a "network", when the dates change and the
>> network code is recycled it should be considered a new network.  Not sure I
>> understood your question, did that help at all?
>>
>> Chad
>>
>> On Jun 14, 2011, at 2:00 PM, John D. West wrote:
>>
>> > Hello.
>> >
>> > I'm using the station webservice in EMERALD to maintain a local cache of
>> network, station, and component metadata. In the Network level, reuse of
>> network codes makes it difficult to differentiate between new and modified
>> networks, e.g., if a network EndDate changes, my system registers it as a
>> new usage of the network code instead of modification of an existing
>> network.
>> >
>> > Is there some unique identifier for each network which can be included
>> in the web service?
>> >
>> > Thanks!
>> >
>> >      -- John
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > webservices mailing list
>> > webservices at iris.washington.edu
>> > http://www.iris.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/webservices
>>
>>
>
>
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