[Koha-devel] Re: [PERL4LIB] MARC::Record addfields and field order

[Pat Eyler]

On Mon, 10 Jun 2002, Ron Davies wrote:

> Andy,
>
> I agree with Alan, you would ideally have two (or maybe three) options.
>
> 1) To add the field to the end of the block.
> If I am adding a 3xx field then it should be written to the record so
> it is the last field in the 3xx  block, i.e. it follows the last field
> with a tag beginning with 3. IMHO, this should really be the default
> behaviour for add_fields(). Adding fields to the end of the record isn't
> really MARC, though I am sure there are dozens (hundreds?) of
> implementations that don't care.
>
> 2) To add the field to a particular position
> Here it could be before a specified field tag and occurrence number,
> or after a specific field tag and occurrence number..  but both options
> would be even better. ;-)
>
> While you can certainly get the information from the fields(tagspec)
> method, it might be nice to have a convenience method that would return
> the number of occurrences of a specific tag as well, and which you could
> then just plug back into the methods described in 2) above.
>
> Sorry about mentioning the w*rk*r**nd word. I'm implementing a new ILS
> system to a tight schedule and I didn't want to impose my little
> problems on the rest of you. Also I hate to disappoint, but we're only
> using plain old vanilla MARC21. No Swiss chocolate at all.

Ron,
As you're working on an ILS system in Perl, I thought I'd ask you about
your experience with Koha.  If you haven't looked at us, please do
<www.koha.org> and
<http://www.saas.nsw.edu.au/wiki/index.php?page=KohaProject> or come talk
with us on #koha at <irc.katipo.co.nz>.  If you have looked at koha and
decided it didn't meet you needs, what was lacking?

We're currently in the process of a mjor development push, and you may
find that it is easier for you to get your ILS by joining forces with us.
If you don't want to go that far, you may still find that cooperating on
some tasks will lead to a better solution for you.

thanks,
-pate


Pat Eyler


>
> Ron
>