Search Attributes
This is a stash for information which was in /documentation/attributes - it may not be relevant, and should be updated.
Searching with Attributes
You may search for only Attribute Name (leave Value and Units blank) to return specimens that match your other criteria and possess data for the specified Attribute. Exercising this option unwisely (For example, searching for all specimens with Attribute ‘sex’ and no other qualifiers) can time-out your request.
You can search for Attributes by only value or by only units. For example:
- Attribute: Numeric Age
-
Units = “years” (Returns all specimens with a numeric age recorded in years.)
- Attribute: Numeric Age
- Value = “5” (Returns all specimens with a numeric age of 6 years, 6 days, etc.
You may set the search operator for Attributes to:
equalscontainsgreater thanless than
Equals will find only exact matches. Contains will find substring
matches. For example, sex equals ‘male’ will find only male
specimens; sex contains ‘male’ will find both male and female.
Searching by Attribute Type
In addition to the above, the interactive Specimen Results Widget will accept any attribute, with spaces and dashes replaced by underscore, as a variable. For example, “age class” becomes “age_class.”
All attributes (and most other variables) will accept underbar (_) to mean “require the field; match any value.” For example, “age_class=_” will return specimens for which the attribute “age class” exists.
String attributes – those consisting of uncontrolled text and those consisting of code-table controlled vocabularies – will accept two prefixes: = (meaning “is exactly”) and ! (meaning “is not”). Unprefixed attributes are case-insensitive substring matches, and so “male” will match “male” and “female.”
Numeric attributes – those with code-table controlled units – will accept prefixes = (exactly), ! (is not), < (less than), > (greater than), and appropriate units as suffix. Arctos will guess at unit suffix, so an exact code-table match is not usually necessary. Units of both data and criteria are converted (to meters, days, and grams), and so exact matches may be difficult to obtain. Therefore, numeric attributes will also accept a range of values in conjunction with units (format {low value}{dash}{high_value} {units}).
The following examples are illustrative.
| SearchTerm | Result |
|---|---|
| age_class=adult | adult, subadult, …. |
| age_class==adult | adult |
| age_class=!adult | juvenile, subadult, …. |
| numeric_age=3 | 3 years, 3 seconds, 3 days, ….. |
| numeric_age=!3 | 1 years, 5 years, 1 hour, 5 days, … |
| numeric_ag=3 years | {value converted to} 1095.726 days |
| numeric_age=3-5 years | {value converted to days} BETWEEN 1095.726 and 1826.21 days |
Arctos can convert the following units to meters:
- in
- M
- METERS
- METER
- FT
- FEET
- FOOT
- KM
- KILOMETER
- KILOMETERS
- MM
- MILLIMETER
- MILLIMETERS
- CM
- CENTIMETER
- CENTIMETERS
- MI
- MILE
- MILES
- YD
- YARD
- YARDS
- FM
- FATHOM
- FATHOMS
Arctos can convert the following units to grams:
- G
- GRAMS
- GRAM
- KG
- KILOGRAM
- KILOGRAMS
- LB
- POUND
- POUNDS
- OZ
- OUNCE
- OUNCES
Arctos can convert the following units to days:
- D
- DAY
- DAYS
- H
- HOUR
- HOURS
- M
- MONTH
- MONTHS
- WEEK
- WEEKS
- YR
- Y
- YEAR
- YEARS
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