On Tue, 21 May 2002, Alan Millar wrote:
My suggestion: what about using the existing structure of the KohaDB (perhaps with minor mods) for these search index tables? Code transition would happen by first isolating all the writes to the existing tables and making them go through API's. Then any existing code that is just reading the data wouldn't have to change.
Of course, if we have such an API, there is no longer any need to maintain two backend databases. :) This API is in the works, and will be an integral part of MARC development.
It seems to me that the other (original?) Marc representation can be considered yet a third format. I'm thinking of ones I see where the tag number is at the beginning of each line and the $ character separates the subfields. I'm presuming that this is what Marc-familiar librarians work on, and then it is translated to be stored in the control-character file format (or something else like the database we are discussing).
What you are talking about is just a universal format for displaying marc records to an end user (usually a librarian). It is never used for storing marc records, as far as I now. Steve.