Place details and description

#1 · 2020-12-29, 1:29 pm

I have kinda of a mess with place details and descriptions. Is there a sql that will combine the 2 and put the results into the place description?

Thanks Roger

#2 · 2020-12-29, 3:17 pm

I don't think there is an existing SQL to do this, and it would be tricky to create. If Tom or somebody else has already done it, I congratulate them on their ingenuity.

I have the same issue, and I decided to do the whole project of merging Place Details back into Places manually rather than trying to write the SQL. The SQL for this project would be very fraught. The query would have to create new entries in the PlaceTable to combine Place + Place Details except where such entries already existed. Then it would have to re-target all the entries in the EventTable that used Place Details to the correct new combined entries in the Place Table. It would be doable, but it would be a mind bender, I think.

#3 · 2020-12-30, 8:39 am

I found this one but did not understand until I read your message but now I kinda understand. What do you think?

I think it replaces the description with place details where as I want to append the place details to the description?

https://sqlitetoolsforrootsmagic.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/FTMimport-MoveEventPlaceDetail2Description.sql

Roger

#4 · 2020-12-30, 2:56 pm

If I understand correctly, you want to move the Place Details Place Name to the Place Description. Why?

For a Place with multiple Place Details, it would end up with whatever was originally in its Description plus a list or string of Names from the Place Details and the Place Details records expunged from the database. You would cease using Place Details. Is that the goal?

The Place Description (labelled Place Note in Place List) is unavailable in all but one or a couple of reports and only in the Place Editor. Person Search cannot access it but Find Everywhere can.

#5 · 2020-12-30, 3:32 pm

Tom

After looking at my mess I think I will just do it manually. That way hopefully it will come out right at least most of the time.

Thanks

Roger

#6 · 2020-12-30, 4:19 pm

Many things are possible using SQLite but this may be one that does not lend itself to programmatic solutions. I had a look at the Place Details for one Place in a database. Here is what I got:

Name	Note
154 Mississaga St.	Presumably West not East.
Mississaga St.
Peter St.	South or North? There is also a Peter St. in Ramara, about 9 km east where is currently situated the only William St. in the area, also a street location for Samuel Reeve.
Soldiers' Memorial Hospital	170 Colborne St W, Orillia, ON L3V 2Z3 (705) 325-2201
St Andrew's and St James' Cemetery	320 Coldwater Rd W, Orillia, ON L3V 6J8 (705) 326-6021
William St.	No William St. found within Orillia; this one is 9km from the heart of town.

RM7 does not support tables in Note fields (maybe RM8 will, given that Family Historian now does) so we have to concatenate the Name and Note. Perhaps the Note gets started on a new line, prefaced by "Note:". Or maybe it gets wrapped in privacy braces to distinguish it and possibly get exploited in RM8 reports.

This example has pretty good data that does not cry out for special treatment. Another example I looked at was from an import from FTM in which the author exploited a field that RM puts into the Name to contain all sorts of info that really belongs elsewhere, e.g., an event Note. I wouldn't want that in the Place Note and would want to review the content and place anything valuable where I think it should be based on the persons and events that use that Place Detail. Once converted, that linkage is lost.