The Normalizer is included in vegbranch in versions beta 4.1 and higher. You can download it as a stand-alone
MS-Access database with the above link.
The Normalizer takes a denormalized .csv file and normalizes
it. You can specify criteria for this normalization, or let it AutoDetect them.
In order to understand this, you must first understand what denormalized and normalized
data are.
Normalized data have only one field (column) for each data field. The same data field
does not appear in multiple columns. This is "standard" database architecture, but often
users have application which require denormalized data, which is often more compact and perhaps more
useful in specific situations.
Denormalized data have multiple fields (columns) that describe the same data field,
each listed under a different column value for a separate field. For example, if you have many columns with
species names and the cover value listed below each, that is a denormalized table
(see example 1 below). The normalized table would have
only species name in the one column, and cover value in the next column.
The method of labelling the denormalized ID rows to the left, ID rows above, and data cells themselves are my convention.
Columns are labelled above, Rows are labelled to the left, and where all three collide, a single cell
represents all three labels by using a pipe symbol, | , to separate column label, row label, and data cell label, respectively.
Example 2: same as example 1, except includes a complex label for field names:
Plot|Spec|CoverPercent
The complex label consists of three parts: 1) the label for the data that appears in the left column, 2) the label for data in the first row, above the cover data, and 3) the label for the intersection cells, here cover percent.
These are divided with a | in the .csv file. This essentially combines three cells into one.
The three cells in which the complex label could be divided could be colored like this:
