One of the other big changes in 3.5.0 is the addition of support for importing into the database. With this, you can take use a text file to do bulk additions or edits to the database. As a result, the page RCLogbook serves up for external database access has gotten a bit more involved.
The New Hotness Served up by RCLogbook
Import is done using a setup similar to the “replace the database” functionality from 3.0.x. You select a file and hit a button. In addition, links to external documentation as well as a template for the import file have been added here for convenience.
The import format itself differs from the .CSV format used for text exports in 3.0.x. Though the structure is similar to 3.0.x, the delimiters have changed from commas to tabs. This lets us keep commas in the notes now, which seems like a good thing to allow. As an example,
[INFO]⇒RCLogbook Database (Release 3.5 with DB v.3)
[SECTION]⇒Characters
Character UID⇒Character Name⇒Sith⇒Weapon
[NEW]⇒Obi Wan⇒⇒Lightsaber
[NEW]⇒Darth Sidious⇒Yes⇒Force Lightning
[INFO]⇒End of File
One of the documents linked from the server page describes the actual format of the import files for RCLogbook. We will get into some of the design trade-offs that were made in the import implementation in future posts.
