Fields that Updaters Cannot Update

There are some fields in the KID that updaters cannot update. For instance if an updater checks out a cave when they reach the page where they select the fields to checkout they will find that the fields 1. number and 3.1 principal name will not appear. This is because changing the cave number (e.g. 2J-30) or its principal name is effectively changing the identity of a cave. Other entities in the database refer to caves by their number and unless these other references were all found and changes at the same time confusion would result.

A caves number would rarely if ever be changed. If absolutely necessary it would have to be done in conjunction with the State Coordinator and the KID System Administrator.

There are also other entities which have fields that cannot be updated by updaters. The reason is that those fields determine the identity of the entity. For instance a person is identified by their surname, usual first name and middle initial. The list of fields that cannot be updated by updaters is shown below and a brief reason is given.

Entity & Field ID	Field Name	Comment
Cave
18	state or province	A Cave can’t change state.
19	area	A Cave can’t change area.
77	serial no.	A Cave can’t change number.
70	principal name	Unlikely to change.
People
479	surname	Person can’t change surname.
480	usual first name	Person can’t change first name.
481	middle initial	Person can’t change middle initial.
Organisation
376	organisation country code	Org can’t change its country.
178	organisation code	Org can’t change its code.
390	organisation initials	Org can’t change initials.
391	organisation name	Org can’t change its name.
Area
225	state code	Area can’t change state.
81	area code	Area can’t change code.
80	area name	Area can’t change name.
Map
201	map sequence number
202	map or sheet name
271	map number	Map can’t change its official number.

Most of the reasons for the immutability of the fields above are self explanatory however for maps a more detailed explanation follows. These are the definitions for the non-updatable map fields:

201 Map sequence number: The map sequence number used by the organisation which issued the map number. (e.g. 148)

202 Map or sheet name: The name of the map, or, if a map series, then the name of the sheet. If there is no name, then a brief description. (e.g. The Putrid Pit)

271 Map number: The official number allocated to a map, or to a map sheet in a series. (e.g. 2B1.SSS148)

From the definitions and examples you can see how they specify a maps identity and thus they would be unlikely to change. They are also used throughout the database and changing them is not a simple update.