Data Preparation
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Pedserve is best thought of as a 'read only' pedigree database. It is not intended to be a system where records are continually updated, added and deleted in an interactive way. It is, rather, intended as a 'viewer', with the whole data set updated from time to time. You, the site owner, typically maintain a separate 'master' database, and from time to time you take a 'snapshot' of it to update your Pedserve-powered web site. You typically use one of the various Pedigree Software products to maintain your master database. A good example of such a program is our Breeders Assistant product - a fully featured Windows based product for storing and managing pedigree data on a PC. But it need not be Breeders Assistant. pdsmakedataTaking a 'snapshot' of your master database and placing it on your website involves converting your master database into the load format required by the Pedserve system, and then loading it. There are various ways you can do this, but one of the easiest is to use the pdsmakedata tool that we supply with Pedserve. pdsmakedata is a utility program that converts animal data in raw 'CSV' or 'tab separated' form, generating 1 or more load files that can be directly fed into the MySQL database on your Pedserve-powered website. pdsmakedata is powerful, flexible, and very fast. It will accept your input data in many formats, supports user-defined fields AND user defined record types, and will generate all of the optional fields that Pedserve can utilise. If you have Pedserve Pro, Advanced or Developer Edition, it also features rapid bulk computation of inbreeding coefficients and related data. Use of pdsmakedata is required if you want to use the 'on the fly' inbreeding computations for trial matings as supported by Pedserve Advanced and Developer Editions. The inbreeding coefficient computation is very fast, and is multi-threaded in order to take full advantage of todays advanced multi-core processors. Currently, the pdsmakedata program is supplied as an executable for Windows, but we make make it available for other platforms if there is dufficient demand. Once you have created your load file, you feed it into your MySQL database either through a MySQL web admin interface (e.g. phpMyAdmin), or, if you have shell access to your web server, you can transfer the file to your server (using FTP etc), login, and use the Do It YourselfYou don't have to use our pdsmakedata tool for your uploading. Pedserve data is, after all, just a collection of tables in a MySQL database. So, there is no reason why you cannot upload the data into those tables in any other way you like. Note however that you do need to use pdsmakedata if you have the Advanced Edition and want to provide inbreeding calculations in trial pedigrees, or use 'sounds like' similarity searching. |
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