EDCS Query Tool Help

The EDCS Query Tool allows you to search and browse the contents of the Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS) dictionaries through an intuitive graphical user interface. You can use this tool to view the contents of each EDCS dictionary, search for words or phrases in one or all of the EDCS dictionaries, and display one or more individual entries from any EDCS dictionary.

To learn more about using the EDCS Query Tool, click a topic in the table of contents.

Table of Contents:


Browsing the EDCS Dictionaries

The EDCS contains nine dictionaries. These are the classifications (EC), the attributes (EA), the attribute value characteristics (EV), the attribute enumerants (EE), the units (EU), the unit scales (ES), the unit equivalence classes (EQ), the organizational schemas (EO), and the groups (EG) dictionaries. For more information on the role and function of each of these dictionaries, please see the Final Committee Draft version of the Environmental Data Coding Specification (EDCS FCD ISO/IEC 18025). The EDCS Query Tool allows you to browse the contents of each of these dictionaries.

The attribute enumerants (EE) dictionary entries are scoped within the attributes (EAs). And there is only one entry in the organizational schemas (EO) dictionary, and all entries in the groups (EG) dictionary belong to that single entry in the EO dictionary. Therefore, the EDCS Query Tool shows the content of the EE dictionary in concert with the EA dictionary, and combines the browsing of the EO and the EG dictionaries into one selection.

The Browse tab contains a drop-down selection box that allows you to select the EDCS dictionary you wish to browse: EC, EA (with EEs), EO (with groups), EU, ES, EV, or EQ.

The content of the selected dictionary is displayed in alphabetical order of labels in the window below the drop-down selection box. When you select a different EDCS dictionary in the drop-down box, this window will update automatically. A screen shot of the Browse window is shown in Figure 1.

Each entry's label works as a hyperlink, where the hyperlink opens a Dictionary Entry Display Window showing the EDCS dictionary entry for that concept.

Browse Window
Figure 1 - The Browse window


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Searching the EDCS

You can use the search mechanism in the EDCS Query Tool to look for words, phrases, or entries in a specific EDCS dictionary, or in all EDCS dictionaries at once.

Click the Search tab to enter search mode. From the drop-down selection box, select any of the nine EDCS dictionaries you wish to search, or choose "All Dictionaries" to search all of them. Then type a search query in the text box, and click the Search button to start the search. The results that match the query will be displayed in the search window. To search within the current set of results, choose "Current Results" in the drop-down selection box.

Each returned result will include the label of the entry along with the name of the dictionary in which the entry is found. You can click on a returned result to see that entry. A screen shot of the search window is shown in Figure 2.

Search Window
Figure 2 - The Search window after a search has been performed


Selecting a different dictionary from the drop-down selection box will not affect the display of the current set of search results, until the Search button is pushed again. To sort the results of a search, click on the "asc" or "desc" links to sort alphabetically in ascending or descending order. Each column in the search results can be sorted in this manner.

Below the results list, there is a button labeled "Expand Results With All Referencing Concepts". The behavior of this button is to find all EDCS dictionary entries that reference an entry in the current results list using structured definitions. For example, if the EC BARRIER were in the results list, clicking this button would add any EDCS dictionary entry with a structured definition link to BARRIER.

You can use the EDCS Query Tool to perform simple or complex searches. The search mechanism can perform searches based on full or partial words, Boolean expressions, or POSIX regular expressions. A short overview of the types of searches you can perform is described in the Search Parser section below.

The Search Parser

Searching for words or phrases

You can search for words, partial words, or phrases that occur in dictionary entries. Currently, the search mechanism searches all fields of each dictionary entry from the dictionaries that you specify in your search. This includes searching the contents of the Label, the Definition, the Group Membership, and the Reference-related fields. Therefore, it is important to understand how the search parser works and how the search expressions can be used.

For example, if you were to search for "water" (without the quotation marks), any field of an entry that contained the string "water" (without the quotation marks) would qualify that entry as a match. This means if the string "water" (without the quotation marks) appeared in a label (surrounded by underscores, e.g. _WATER_), or in a word such as watering, or in a definition as the word water (surrounded by white space, e.g. " water ", and without the quotation marks) a match will be returned.

You can narrow your search (or be more precise) by using quotation marks. For example, when you wish to find out if the word water appears as part of the English text in any definitions, you can submit the string " water " (with the quotation marks and the surrounding blank spaces) for searching.

This will eliminate all other occurrences that will not exactly match the string " water ". Note that occurences of water surrounded by spaces will be found, but cases such as " water," " water;" and " water." will not be found. Also the case "Water ", when it begins a sentence or defintion, will not be found.

Similarly, if you wish to search for all occurrences of the classification label <WATER>, then you should submit the string "<water>" (with the quotation marks) for searching.

 Other useful examples to note include (in all cases with quotation marks):

    "<water" finds a structured definition label beginning with WATER
    "_water_" finds a structured definition label with internal token _WATER_
    "water>" finds a structured definition label ending with WATER

To find the word "water" (but not other words such as watering, waters, etc.) in any definition you must enter the following expression (with all the quotation marks):

 " water " or " water;" or "<water>" or "water_" or "_water_" or "_water>"


Please note that the search parser is case insensitive.

You can also use quotation marks to search for phrases. For example, to search for all entries that contain the phrase "any of", type the string "any of" (with quotation marks) in the text box.

Boolean expressions

The Search Parser can understand and process the following Boolean operators: and, or, not. You can combine these Boolean operators to create a Boolean expression that achieves a desired search. For example, to search for all entries that contain either the strings "temperature" or "space", and also contain the string "generally" (in all cases without quotation), you can type the text "generally and temperature or space" (without quotations) in the text box. The Search Parser evaluates each Boolean expression from right to left, unless precedence has been specified using parenthesis. The above example using parenthesis would be: generally and (temperature or space)

In another example, the search string:

one and water or space and time


will evaluate from right to left, and its equivalent parenthesized expression would be:

(one and (water or (space and time)))


Both of these expressions will be evaluated to search for any entry that contains the string "one" (without quotation marks) and at the same time contains either the string "water", or both the stings "space" and "farm" (in all cases, without quotation marks).

The user can specify a different evaluation order for the same strings by using parenthesis in a different way. For example, the expression:

(one and water) or (space and time)


will cause the search mechanism to look for any entry that contains the strings "one" and "water" or the strings "space" and "farm" (without quotation marks in all cases).

Please keep in mind that the explanations provided in previous section (Searching for words or phrases) still apply when using Boolean expressions. Therefore, in the above examples, the search mechanism will search for precisely the strings that have been specified. For example, the word "stones" will produce a match when looking for the string "one" (without the quotation marks).

You are encouraged to experiment with these and other examples, and examine the results of the searches, in order to become more familiar with the searching mechanism's capabilities.

POSIX regular expressions

The Search Parser also understands POSIX regular expressions, which can be used in conjunction with the Boolean expressions.

Below is a short table of how to use regular expressions to perform some simple wildcard searches:

Action Corresponding POSIX regular expression
Match any set of characters .*
Match any single character .


For more information regarding regular expressions, the following website is suggested as a good reference:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/helpsheets/regex.html

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Dictionary Entry Display Window

The dictionary entry display window is used throughout the tool to display EDCS concepts. When a label hyperlink is selected, the content of the dictionary entry corresponding to that label will be shown in a separate window.

To help manage open dictionary display windows, the "Window" menu item of the main application window keeps track of all open dictionary display windows. This menu item includes options to close all open windows, hide all open windows, and show windows that have been hidden. When the Exit button or the Quit menu item is invoked, all open dictionary entry display windows will be closed.

The EDCS Query Tool also manages how many copies of the same dictionary entry are open to avoid the proliferation of duplicate windows. If a dictionary entry window is open already, subsequent attempts to display the same entry will not create a new window. Instead the tool will provide a visual indication that an existing window for the same entry is open and will then close and reopen the same window to attract the user's attention. Figure 3 shows a typical dictionary entry display window.



Dictionary Entry Display Window
Figure 3 - An example of a dictionary entry display window

When an dictionary display window is opened via the search results list, "Next Result" and "Prev Result" buttons are added to the dictionary entry display window, to allow the user navigate through the results of a search without having to go back and forth to the results window. Clicking on either of these buttons will cause the next or previous concept in the search result list to be displayed in the current window.



Dictionary Entry Display Window with Results
Figure 4 - An example of a dictionary entry display window with next and prev. results


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Logging Dictionary Entries and Search Results

The EDCS Query Tool has a logging mechanism so a user can track dictionary entries and search results in a plain text log file. The user can choose to log full EDCS dictionary entries or simply log EDCS concept labels.

If the user would like to use the same log file for all logging events, they can chose File->Open Log File, which will open a log file to be used up until the time where the user selects File->Close Log File or opens another file via the File->Open Log File menu option. Opening a log file via the Dump to Logfile button on the Dictionary Entry Display Window will follow the same behavior.

Pushing the Dump Results to Logfile button on the Search tab without having opened a log file via the File->Open Log File menu entry will allow the user to choose a log file that will be used only to log the current set of search results and then closed afterward. With this mechanism the user can log consecutive searches to different log files without having to do File->Open Log File, File->Close Log File operations between each search.

By default, the EDCS Query Tool will log full dictionary entries in plain text to the user chosen log file. This behavior can be modified by selecting the menu option Options->Dump Only Concept Labels to Log File. If this item is selected the log file will be populated with a single label entry for each concept that is logged.

For example, if the EDCS Classification BARRIER is in the Dictionary Entry Display Window and the dump concept labels option is selected, pressing the Dump to Logfile button will cause the line "EC BARRIER" to be added to the log file. This format is the same for each dictionary (EC label, EA label, EU label, EV label, etc), with the exception of enumerant concepts and group concepts. Enumerant dictionary concepts will be logged with the following format "EE attribute label*enumerant label", and Group dictionary concepts will be logged similarly as "EG organization schema label*group label."



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Where to get more help

If you cannot find the information you are looking for in this document, require additional support with the EDCS Query Tool, or would like to report a defect with this tool, please contact us by sending e-mail to: help@sedris.org

If you are reporting a defect with this tool, please note your machine configuration and the platform you are using, be specific about the nature of the problem, and provide a detailed description of the conditions under which you experience a problem.


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