iband7: IBP banding data entry system |  |
iband7: IBP banding data entry system | |
You can use any basic text editor, such as Notepad, to create the raw data format described in Section 6, “Input file format”. However, you'll spend a lot of time pounding on the spacebar to make the fields line up correctly.
To make life much easier and more efficient, the author has written some extensions to the emacs text editor for the entry of IBP banding data. The emacs text editor is one of the oldest and most widely used open source tools. For information and free downloads for Windows, Macs, and Unix, see the emacs page at the Free Software Foundation.
The reader is assumed to be familiar with emacs.
Installation of the IBP extensions is straightforward.
These extensions are written in the elisp
language, a variant of Lisp. Complete internal
documentation for these extensions is available: see IBP banding data system:
emacs customizations.
Once emacs is installed on your machine, do these things to use the customizations:
Copy all the files whose names in .el from the IBP zip archive to your
current working directory.
Start up emacs to create the banding data file by
its usual name, e.g., wena-2005-1 or
20035-2004. In general
the command will look like this:
emacs -lpackagedata-file
In this command, data-filepackage
is from this list:
| Package | Protocol | Format |
|---|---|---|
maps2013m.el | MAPS 2013 | Multiple stations |
maps2013s.el | MAPS 2013 | Single stations |
maps2004m.el | MAPS 2006 | Multiple stations |
maps2004s.el | MAPS 2006 | Single stations |
maps1998m.el | MAPS 1998 | Multiple stations |
maps1998s.el | MAPS 1998 | Single stations |
maws2007m.el | MAWS 2007 | Multiple stations |
maws2007s.el | MAWS 2007 | Single stations |
maws2004m.el | MAWS 2004 | Multiple stations |
maws2004s.el | MAWS 2004 | Single stations |
Two special keys are defined to speed up data entry:
Advances the cursor to the next field. If the field
is not full, it is filled with spaces (or whatever
other character is the default, such as 0 for age and u for sex). Do
not tab over required fields such as species code and
date.
C-- (control-shift-hyphen)
Provides a “duplicate” function: it copies the current field value from the corresponding field of the previous band record that has such a value. It is especially useful for duplicating date, time, and net fields.
For the purposes of this package, the field structure in a multi-station set are shown below; default content is blanks unless otherwise indicated.
Band number. When tab
is used in a band number,
the first character of the line must already have been entered
so the package can tell whether the line starts with the last
two digits of a new band number (e.g., n23)
or all nine digits for a recap record.
Species code.
Age and the two how-aged columns are considered one
field. The default content is “0··”.
Sex and the two how-sexed columns are considered one field.
The default content is “U··”.
The next four fields, skull through fat, are considered one field.
The next four fields, body molt through juvenal plumage, are considered one field.
WRP molt cycle code.
The first four micro-aging fields are considered one field.
(Six fields for the iband4 format.)
The last four micro-aging fields are considered one field.
Wing length.
Weight.
Status and the four-digit date are considered one field. If the status is different but the date is the same, just type the single-character status code and then use the “duplicate” function for the date.
Time.
Station code for multi-station sets. For single-station sets, this field is omitted.
Net code.
Any remaining fields—the alignment check character, color bands, note numbers, and so on—are considered “beyond the fields we know.”
I have also found the emacs C-u (control-U) function quite useful: it repeats the next emacs command four times. Because the micro-aging, wing, and weight fields are often all blank, all four of these fields can be skipped with C-u tab.