Dynamic Typing and Scientific Data

From: Webb Sprague <wwsprague_at_ucdavis.edu>
Date: 31 Jan 2003 11:30:50 -0800
Message-ID: <m3y951t8ut.fsf_at_megalopa.ucdavis.edu>

I am modeling an ecosystem for a collaborative scientific project, and I have a table called "Replicates" which contains all of the data measurements. Through a couple of foreign keys, this table refers to another table "Protocols" which describe the measurements and the units they are in (like "count ", "percentage", "weight", "description").

I want to be able to cast this data dynamically. I was thinking of storing the data in a Bytea (or something generic) and then use a CASE statement with a bunch of CAST(foo AS integer).

Has anyone else done something like this before? I would be happy to hear about different ways to think about the problem too.

DB is Postgres, so I might be able to monkey around with user defined types, but I would prefer a portable solution.

I would post the schema, but I don't know how to draw a table in xfig. :(

Thanks!
W Received on Fri Jan 31 2003 - 20:30:50 CET