Ambrose Li [CCCGT] a écrit:
Hello,
regarding the issue of mandatory subfields. What does it mean that a certain subfield is mandatory?
For example take ISBN. 020a is currently marked as mandatory. does it mean that
(1) a is mandatory in the 020 field, or
(2) 020 is mandatory in addition to a being mandatory in 020?
Should we allow "not mandatory" fields that contain "mandatory" subfileds within those "not mandatory" fields? Or am I not knowing what I'm talking about (which could very much be true)?
In MARC, you've FIELDS and SUBFIELD. A field is, for example : 200$axxx$bttt$c126987 The subfields being $a, $b and $c in this case. The 200 field can be mandatory (the "line" MUST exist), and some of the subfields inside the field may be mandatory or not. For example : 200 => mandatory $a => mandatory $b => non mandatory $c => non mandatory $x => non mandatory. The sample before is a "valid" field, as the missing subfield ($x) is non mandatory. So, every combination can be possible (M/M, M/NM, NM/M, NM/NM. For NM field and M field it means : the field is not mandatory, but if present, this subfield MUST be present) HTH note that 1.3.x version does not deals perfectly with mandatory fields. -- Paul POULAIN Consultant indépendant en logiciels libres responsable francophone de koha (SIBGB libre http://fr.koha.org)