ANY-maze Help > The ANY-maze reference > The Protocol page > The elements of a protocol > Additional information > Fields > Editing a field

Editing a field

Introduction

You can edit absolutely everything related to a field at any time, whether before, during or after the experiment. However, although there are no restrictions on what you can edit, there are a few things to be aware of.

Points to note

If you change the type of a field, then any entries that have already been recorded for the field will be deleted - ANY-maze will warn you first. For example, if you create a Text field called gender and enter the gender of three animals and then change the field's type to Choice, then the entries you made for the three animals will be discarded.

If you change what a field is recorded for (i.e. for animals or for tests), then entries that you've already made for the fields will be deleted.

When you make an entry for a choice field, the entry is actually recorded as the index of the choice. For example, if you created a field to record animal gender as either 'Male' or 'Female' and you then recorded an animal as 'Male', what would actually be stored would be the index of the choice - i.e. zero. This means that if you changed the choice 'Male' to 'Masculine' then all the animals would automatically be updated appropriately. However, you should take care with such edits, because if for example you changed the choices from 'Male, Female' to 'Feminine, Masculine', then all the 'Male' animals would suddenly appear as 'Feminine'!

If you reduce the number of choices available for a choice field, then any data recorded for choices which no longer exist will be deleted. For example, if you set up a choice field to record animals' ages as '3-6 months, 7-12 months, > 12 months' and you removed the choice '> 12 months', then any animals which were recorded as '> 12 months' would simply have their age discarded.

Editing a field

Introduction

Points to note

See also: