Key Administration Concepts
for a more generalised overview of ARK, check out the about http://ark.lparchaeology.com/about section of the website. This is a review fo concepts that are key for administreing an ARK instance effectively.
Items and Fragments
A more detailed explanation fo items anf fragments can be found in the about http://ark.lparchaeology.com/about section of the website. Items are effectively key records. These are the records that the end users will recognise as a 'record'. Items are effectively just an index system, the data which makes up the record is contained in fragments that are attached to the items in many ways. Fragments are therefore in effect the atomic particles of ARK, they are the smallest unit of data that the system can handle. Fields are a way of describing each fragment within ARK. This differs slightly from the normal database use of the term. In ARK the field is more like a unit of settings which describe the data that may be contained within the field. These data are fragments.
Validation Rules
Validation rules are the things which make up one of the main compontents of a field. These could be describded as the sub-atomic particles of an ARK fragment, although in fact, they refer to the field not the fragments.
Validation rules for ARK's forms are contained in the vd_settings.php file. This helps to keep them together. In short validation rules serve two purposes:
- They tell a given element of a field how to request itself from the system when it is involved in any kind of form edit routine.
- They tell the update script how to validate that particular element of a fragment.
Fields
Fields are made up of settings directives which typically include validation rules. Fields describe fragments and the way they are handled by the system.
