Technical data

WALIS is composed by a database, a user interface and a series of Jupyter notebooks that allow extracting and processing the database records. These three elements are briefly introduced below.

Database

WALIS data is contained in a mySQL (5.7) database, hosted on an Amazon Web Services instance. The database is managed offline with HeidiSQL. and MySQL Workbench. The database contains 23 tables and 1 view. Seven of the 23 tables are used for user and groups management within the interface, while the remaining 16 tables and 1 view are dedicated to sea-level data and meta-data.

Warning

Only one-to-one relationships are defined in the database directly. One-to-many and many-to-many relationships are defined via comma-separated fields and managed in the PhP interface directly.

Interface

The WALIS interface is written in PhP (7.0). It allows users to register and insert data. The bulk of the interface was done with Scriptcase, a commercial PhP Web Development tool. Within the interface, there is the possibility to download a multi-sheet Excel file containing all data inserted by the logged user. This tool is coded in Python, served via a Flask web app.

Note

A modification of the Flask web app is in preparation, to allow the user to export a zip file containing not only Excel file (a proprietary format), but also a series of csv and json files.

Interface versions

The following table shows the main changes corresponding with each interface versions

Version Changes Date
1.7.3 Minor fixes to the holocene database 10/8/2021 14:47
1.7.2 Minor fixes to the holocene database 7/28/2021 14:17
1.7.1 Insertion of U-Series dating for oolites 06/05/21 11:35
1.7.0 First inclusion of Holocene data 02/16/21  18:19
1.6.3 Small updates to interface 11/09/20  15:23
1.6.2 Shift to AWS hosting 05/09/20  15:07
1.6.1 General improvements 04/23/20  16:26
1.6.0 Inserted python download functions 04/15/20  13:54
1.5.6 New security system with logged users 04/15/20  12:32
1.5.4 Minor updates and bug fixes 04/09/20  14:20
1.5.3 Minor updates and bug fixes 03/16/20  10:24
1.5.2 Minor updates and bug fixes 02/29/20  22:56
1.5.1 Revised maps 02/03/20  15:20
1.5.0 Heavily revised table reports and maps 01/26/20  13:09
1.4.5 Added map of user sites 01/21/20  09:36
1.4.4 Fixed bugs on different tables and started to improve help functions 01/20/20  17:21
1.4.3 Changes in Luminescence and updates of search function 01/15/20  16:01
1.4.2 Slight changes to ESR and Chronostratigrapy 01/08/20  11:27
1.4.0 Changes in database structure for ESR, AAR and LUM. Other minor changes on the layout. 10/18/19  11:53
1.3.0 Minor style and messages updates 09/11/19  17:00
1.2.7 Minor style and messages updates 09/10/19  21:52
1.2.6 Minor app and database bug fixes 08/19/19  19:25
1.2.5 Bug fixes and updates 07/28/19  14:58
1.2.4 Bug fixes and updates 07/28/19  11:46
1.2.3 Bug fixes and updates 07/24/19  11:38
1.2.2 Bug fixes and updates 07/10/19  18:37
1.2.1 Bug fixes and updates 06/19/19  11:03
1.2.0 Bug fixes and updates 06/06/19  15:28
1.1.5 First online version 06/03/19  19:59
1.1.4 Small fixes 05/26/19  13:36
1.1.3 Small fixes 05/20/19  16:12
1.1.2 Built menus and grids 05/19/19  11:46
1.1.1 Built forms 05/04/19  15:45
1.0.0 Initial beta 12/18/18  17:58

Jupyter notebooks

A series of Jupyter notebooks allows extracting the data and making simple maps/statistics.

Note

As of January 2021, the Jupyter notebooks are still in preparation, and not publicly available