Other interest period
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Basic specification
 
Visible name Other interest period
Typical usage An all purpose seasonal item (or date range item). Use this item either independent of or in conjunction with the "Other interest" item.
Visible display type Displayed using a calendar date-range manipulator.

Seasons may be defined using an idealized Northern Hemisphere location where each season is divided into exactly three months.

Data entry view Special qualities view

Storage details
 
SQL name OtherInterestBegins
OtherInterestEnds
Storage type Two database timestamp fields representing the beginning and ending date of the seasonal period.

Import / export notes

When importing and exporting the column names for this item are OtherInterestBegins and OtherInterestEnds.
When importing with the Merge option, the existing values for this item will be completely overwritten by the values specified in the input file.
 
Action File type Notes
Import Delimited file Each of the two fields may be set using a formatted date such as "Dec 01" or "Dec 31".

Seasons may also be specified by using the following key words instead of dates:

Keyword OtherInterestBegins OtherInterestEnds
spring Mar 01 May 31
early spring Mar 01 Mar 31
mid spring Apr 01 Apr 30
late spring May 01 May 31
     
summer Jun 01 Aug 31
early summer Jun 01 Jun 30
mid summer Jul 01 Jul 31
late summer Aug 01 Aug 31
     
fall Sep 01 Nov 30
early fall Sep 01 Sep 30
mid fall Oct 01 Oct 31
late fall Nov 01 Nov 30
     
winter Dec 01 Feb 28
early winter Dec 01 Dec 31
mid winter Jan 01 Jan 31
late winter Feb 01 Feb 28
     

An "unspecified" period may be represented by setting both the beginning and the ending times to "Jan 01".

XML file Each field must be in the XML standard format that looks like:  2000-12-31T00:00:00Z.  The year must be set to the arbitrary value of 2000.  The time must be set to midnight.  Only the month and day are meaningful.

An "unspecified" period may be represented by setting both the beginning and the ending times to 2000-01-01T00:00:00Z.

Export Delimited file Written out using a format like: "Dec 31".
XML file The same rules apply as for XML import.

Publication templates

The replacement tag is <cb:OtherInterestBegins>. Note that the complimentary tag for OtherInterestEnds is not used; simply including the tag OtherInterestBegins will suffice to display both the beginning and ending dates for the season.

The possible attributes for this tag are shown below. Values marked with an asterisk are used by default.
 
Attribute Possible values Notes
text on * A date range formatted something like:
  "Mar 01 - May 31"
off No text is written.

 

For similar pages in the "Specifications" series see:

   Alphabetical index to column specifications

 

For an index to other topics see

   Specimen

 

Last reviewed March 25, 2004   

 

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