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Compare a project's dictionary against the packaged one

compare_dictionary.Rd

The packaged CSV is the schema and REDCap imports it as it is, so the two start identical. What this reads is whether they still are: an import that dropped a field, a hand edit on the form, a field type loosened to get past a validation complaint.

Usage

compare_dictionary(actual, instances = NULL)

Arguments

actual

The dictionary read back from the live project, in the same eighteen-column shape register_dictionary() returns.

instances

Character vector of instance names, passed through to register_dictionary(). With it, the choices of server are compared by content as every other field is. Without it, they are compared by shape and the substitution is declared.

Value

A list with conforms and differences, the latter a character vector of CODE:field strings. Shaped like compare_readback() because it answers the same kind of question.

Details

None of those raise anywhere else. request_from_row() reads a missing column as "not set" rather than as an error, and the channel ignores fields it does not know — which is correct behavior and also the reason drift here is silent. The comparison is the only thing that looks.

The codes it can report, and why each is not cosmetic:

  • DIZIONARIO_CAMPO_ASSENTE — the request loses that field without saying so;

  • DIZIONARIO_CAMPO_IN_PIU — breaks nothing, and is direct evidence that somebody edited the form by hand;

  • DIZIONARIO_TIPO_DIVERSO — a request_status gone free-text turns a typo into a request to grant what somebody asked to revoke;

  • DIZIONARIO_SCELTE_DIVERSE — same type, and the value that revokes is gone;

  • DIZIONARIO_READONLY_CADUTO — a requester can type applied into the outcome, and the register carries a success nobody produced;

  • DIZIONARIO_COLONNA_ASSENTE — the dictionary is malformed, and without this code it would read as conforming rather than as unreadable;

  • DIZIONARIO_SCELTE_NON_CONFRONTATE — reported for server when no instance list was given: its choices are the fleet, so without the list only their shape can be judged. It makes conforms false on an otherwise sound dictionary, deliberately — a comparison that could not look at a field must not be able to return a green, which is the same reason DIZIONARIO_COLONNA_ASSENTE exists.