[Koha-devel] Catalogue API (fwd)

[Tonnesen Steve]

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.