jumbled .not data
Posted: June 10th, 2020, 9:37 am
Though we now use v7 the following problem is about the results of v6 data entry. We are going back to work on Notes fields entries with the eventual goal of combining with v7 notes. The following bullets summarize our understanding of the situation:
1. CSPro allows attaching long text fields (NOTES) to variables requiring additional information.
2. Older versions of CSPro produced NOTES data in text files with extension .NOT. Newer versions produce .csnot text files. The latter do not seem to jumble lines of text like the former.
3. CSPro does NOT permit importing data collected in older, .not producing, versions of CSPro into newer, .csnot producing, versions.
4. The .not files present data in a manner that challenges programmatic efforts to import them into SAS.
a. The major difficulty is that the lines appear jumbled.
b. They are inconsistently formatted; all start with the ID, but some follow that ID with the variable name, while others follow the ID with a fragment of the notes.
c. Files often contain repeated lines, which are not difficult to remove.
d. It has been our experience that the pattern that exists for one NOTES file or collection of notes does NOT remain consistent across time, files, or entries. In other words, a pattern for one entry does not necessarily apply to other entries.
e. Typically the .not fields contain continuations of text appearing in variable fields present in the data entry form; consequently, they often start abruptly. So, the import program needs to know at which line to start.
A more frequent issue is the lack of import re: the supplemental notes fields (data entered using the Ctrl+N function in CSPro). When this occurs, the “main” Notes content is typically imported w/o issue, but the supplemental content does not. This sounds like a different problem but want to mention in case related.
Thank you.
-MJ Hill
1. CSPro allows attaching long text fields (NOTES) to variables requiring additional information.
2. Older versions of CSPro produced NOTES data in text files with extension .NOT. Newer versions produce .csnot text files. The latter do not seem to jumble lines of text like the former.
3. CSPro does NOT permit importing data collected in older, .not producing, versions of CSPro into newer, .csnot producing, versions.
4. The .not files present data in a manner that challenges programmatic efforts to import them into SAS.
a. The major difficulty is that the lines appear jumbled.
b. They are inconsistently formatted; all start with the ID, but some follow that ID with the variable name, while others follow the ID with a fragment of the notes.
c. Files often contain repeated lines, which are not difficult to remove.
d. It has been our experience that the pattern that exists for one NOTES file or collection of notes does NOT remain consistent across time, files, or entries. In other words, a pattern for one entry does not necessarily apply to other entries.
e. Typically the .not fields contain continuations of text appearing in variable fields present in the data entry form; consequently, they often start abruptly. So, the import program needs to know at which line to start.
A more frequent issue is the lack of import re: the supplemental notes fields (data entered using the Ctrl+N function in CSPro). When this occurs, the “main” Notes content is typically imported w/o issue, but the supplemental content does not. This sounds like a different problem but want to mention in case related.
Thank you.
-MJ Hill