[GUSDEV] An important schema question (to me, anyways)

[Josef J. <ju...@cs...>]

In looking for a place to put ncbi/swissprot entry dates,
I see that the tables DoTS.AAEntry/DoTS.NAEntry were
probably made for this purpose.  For example, here are
the dates from a typical swissprot record:

        16-OCT-2001 (Rel. 40, Created)
        16-OCT-2001 (Rel. 40, Last sequence update)
        24-JAN-2006 (Rel. 49, Last annotation update)

and here is what the table looks like:

   DoTS.AAEntry;
    Name                Null?    Type
    ------------------- -------- ----------------
    AA_ENTRY_ID         NOT NULL NUMBER(10)
    AA_SEQUENCE_ID      NOT NULL NUMBER(10)
    SOURCE_ID           NOT NULL VARCHAR2(15)
    STATUS                       VARCHAR2(12)
    CREATED_DATE                 DATE
    CREATED_REL_VER              NUMBER(5)
    SEQ_DATE                     DATE
    SEQ_REL_VER                  NUMBER(5)
    ANNOT_DATE                   DATE
    ANNOT_REL_VER                NUMBER(5)

It looks perfect.


HOWEVER, not only is source_id "NOT NULL", it has a unique constraint
on it.

     Every source_id field in this table must be unique.

And though the column source_id is common in tables throughout
most GUS schemas,

    DoTS.AAEntry/DoTS.NAEntry are the only two tables that have
    this unique constraint on source_id.


Jeez; what is going on here?  What is the intended use for
this field?  I suppose I can put an accession number here,
but I was already putting accession numbers in
DoTS.ExternalAASequence.  Why would I or anyone want
to duplicate this?

Please, would someone explain what the intention is here.

Thank you for your help;

Josef





Josef Jurek, Ph.D.

Daphne Preuss Laboratory
Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology
The University of Chicago
ju...@cs...

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