Adding a Field to a Live Repository

EPrints 3.3+

Follow the instructions as you would for HOW TO: Add a New Field.

As described there, you define your new fields in...

• /opt/eprints3/archives/ARCHIVEID/cfg/cfg.d/eprint_fields.pl for EPrint-level metadata,
• /opt/eprints3/archives/ARCHIVEID/cfg/cfg.d/document_fields.pl for document-level metadata (this file doesn't exist by default, but is honoured),
• and /opt/eprints3/archives/ARCHIVEID/cfg/cfg.d/user_fields.pl for user metadata, etc etc.

Since a repository's eprint_fields.pl will override a flavour's eprint_fields.pl based on them both having the same file name, should you only wish to add to a flavour's fields rather than replace them, you may prefer to give your archive's local version a file name such as eprint_fields_local.pl, and then inside have only your new field(s):

push @{$c->{fields}->{eprint}},

{
	name => 'my_first_new_field',
	type => 'set',
	options => [
	    'yes',
	    'no',
	    'partial',
	],
	input_rows => 1,
},

{
	name => 'my_second_new_field',
	type => 'set',
	options => [
	    'yes',
	    'no',
	    'partial',
	],
	input_rows => 1,
},

;

Simply make sure your push, is adding your field to the correct dataset you wish to add fields to - in this case an eprint dataset.

Then, once you have added your new field definitions to the appropriate configuration file you can run update via epadmin from the shell.

You can begin with a dry run to see what would happen:

./bin/epadmin update_dry_run ARCHIVEID

Then once confident proceed for real:

./bin/epadmin update ARCHIVEID

EPrints 3.1+

EPrint 3.3's update is a synonym of the update_database_structure method available from Eprints 3.1+:

./bin/epadmin update_database_structure ARCHIVEID

EPrints 3.0

To add a field to a live eprints archive in Eprints 3.0 you have to modify the SQL tables. Before you start this, you may wish to BackupTheDatabase.

• Add the new columns to the appropriate tables. There are no longer four separate tables for eprints as there were in EP2 (archive, buffer etc), so it's simpler.
  • For a field defined in eprint_fields.pl, the tables are eprint and eprint__ordervalues_en (replacing en with your language as required).
  • For a field defined in document_fields.pl, you want document and document__ordervalues_en.
  • And so on...
• The column types are the same as for EP2, ie in eprint you want a type appropriate to the type of your field exactly as described in the Recipe for EP2, while in eprint__ordervalues_en you want text irrespective of your field type.

EPrints 2.x

See historical versions of this wiki page.