Question Customizing GEDCOM

Thanks for this @RickM. I have encountered this' Fatal error: strict_types declaration must be the very first statement in the script...'  in one of my Wordpress plugins. It's PHP 8.2.xxx issue. I have not got my head around that yet.
I am looking at the module.php in  Webtrees V 2.1 and I am not getting any errors. I am not getting very far either!!

Mahesh wrote:

... Problem arises when it is neccessary to add this info to a new record. ...

 

Afaik Add is only possible with raw edit of gedcom or extending the code of webtrees direct or using a custom module.

Mahesh wrote:

Thanks @norwegian_sardines. I understand what you are saying.
I am trying to do is replicate what I have been doing for past decade on another web aplication.
NATI is very broad tag which can encompass national, religious and cultural descriptions whereas Gotra is very specific term. But I think we are getting there.

Yes GOTRA is a specific term and I understand this. The problem I have with creating a new FACT in v5.5.1 GEDCOM such as GOTRA is that every time you transfer that undefined new FACT in a GEDCOM to a new program the FACT will most likely be tagged as being an error (webtrees does this) or even worse being dropped during import.

I always recommend that users of GEDCOM to follow the v5.5.1 (or v7.0) GEDCOM standard so that you can transfer your data in a uniform/standard way to other programs.

Their are two ways to implement GOTRA in the v5.5.1 GEDCOM standard.

1) Using the NATI fact with a TYPE of GOTRA.
2) Using the FACT tag with the TYPE of GOTRA
The display like this in v2.1 of webtrees.
 

The first one uses the FACT tag, the second uses the NATI tag.

No need to create your own fact tag, use the v5.5.1  GEDCOM Standard!

norwegian_sardines wrote:

Ken,

What replaced the CREM tag in Gedcom v7??

I did read and took in what you suggested. I had a fiddle and using NATI or FACT works as you have shown. Like Mahesh says Gotra is a bit more complex than 'using' Nationality.. I suggested to Mahesh Caste might be an option. Again Mahesh thinks this is not quite right either.

My reading (Google and whatever) of Gotra is it is part of the 'Birth' Record. So what I was attempting to do with the Module suggested by Greg was add Gotra as a Sub Tag of the Birth Record INDI:BIRT:_GOTR . And indeed other programs may not pick up on this tag. And yet we do have the ability to create 'tags' to a Gedcom Standard.. Not sure if the programs do their jobs properly. But then there are issues with Gedcom Standards and application of such (another topic should be opened if one wants to discuss this further). And NO I am no Gedcom expert.

I am so appreciative of the support this WebTrees 'Team' provides. And I also appreciate that this 'Team' can accept that knocking heads sometimes happens, but it is part of finding the solution and none in the 'Team' are wanting to be rude/horrible etc..
 

Sorry, my bad the CREM tag was not eliminated, I was thinking of the CEME tag!

Just because the GOTRA attribute is found on a Birth Record does not mean that we should add it to the BIRT fact.  If the Birth Record indicated the sex, skin color, hair color, number of toes, etc, we would not add subtags to the BIRT fact for these attributes, I would add another attribute either using the FACT tag or the SEX, DSCR (physical description) tag and a date for when that attribute was assigned!

Adding the _GOTRA subtag to the BIRT fact is valid GEDCOM, but not (in my opinion) the best way to incorporate the information in the GEDCOM.  But you can do what ever you want, it is your database.

norwegian_sardines wrote:

Sorry, my bad the CREM tag was not eliminated, I was thinking of the CEME tag!

Just because the GOTRA attribute is found on a Birth Record does not mean that we should add it to the BIRT fact.  If the Birth Record indicated the sex, skin color, hair color, number of toes, etc, we would not add subtags to the BIRT fact for these attributes, I would add another attribute either using the FACT tag or the SEX, DSCR (physical description) tag and a date for when that attribute was assigned!

Adding the _GOTRA subtag to the BIRT fact is valid GEDCOM, but not (in my opinion) the best way to incorporate the information in the GEDCOM.  But you can do what ever you want, it is your database.
 

Ken..

I could be rude and say old age, but I won't, ROFLMAO.. I try to be a nice guy!! Joke of the Day!! I walk out of the room to do something and as soon as I pass the door, I cannot remember what I was going to do!!

Ok, you are swinging me towards the FACT tag. If Mahesh decides to go this way, IS it possible to, I'll use the word, 'setup' a Fact Tag that has Gotra as the Type and a dropdown or at least when typing into the FACT tag entry a list of various 'Gotra Facts'?? This would save repetitive typing etc.. Truth be told the more I think about this, the more I think @Mahesh would be happy with this as a solution.

Perhaps this is why @fisharebest Greg mentioned the Module?? OMG Head hurts now!!

As already said I am no Gedcom smarty pants <smile>. And I think Mahesh is still in that stage of OMG now I see what Gedcom IS, however I have no idea about  the various implications of use etc.. <Smile>.

 

Mahesh wrote:

Thanks for this @RickM. I have encountered this' Fatal error: strict_types declaration must be the very first statement in the script...'  in one of my Wordpress plugins. It's PHP 8.2.xxx issue. I have not got my head around that yet.
I am looking at the module.php in  webtrees V 2.1 and I am not getting any errors. I am not getting very far either!!
 

Mahesh,

I'm sure you will figure it out faster than I will. Either that or maybe your son will.. I might try AI to find a solution to the Fatal Error.. Just for a lark.. It will mean I won't need to break my live site if it can be figured.. <Smile>

The answer: The directive must be the first statement in the file. so moved it to directly below And we are now working in WebTrees v 2.2.2-dev..


I am beginning to lean towards what Ken is saying, so will hope that my question re 'setting up' a FACT tag might get a solution..

 

> Is it possible to, I'll use the word, 'setup' a Fact Tag that has Gotra as the Type and a dropdown 

Yes, with a custom module, you can also create "custom types", which webtrees will show in the related dropdown menus.

I use custom types a lot for my own data and created the  MyCustomTags  module, which provides all addittional types I need for different GEDCOM elements. For example, I created additional types for INDI:EDUC. You can find the code in the following lines:

• github.com/Jefferson49/MyCustomTags/blob...yCustomTags.php#L178
• github.com/Jefferson49/MyCustomTags/blob...ducationType.php#L35

The MyCustomTags module is a template how those kind of type definition can be managed. If you want to use it for your puroposes, it needs to be adopted to your specific needs. If you can specify what is needed, I can support.
  
 

@Jefferson49, that looks like what I'm looking for. I'll have a loook, tomorrow.

Jefferson49 wrote:

> Is it possible to, I'll use the word, 'setup' a Fact Tag that has Gotra as the Type and a dropdown 

Yes, with a custom module, you can also create "custom types", which webtrees will show in the related dropdown menus.

I use custom types a lot for my own data and created the  MyCustomTags  module, which provides all addittional types I need for different GEDCOM elements. For example, I created additional types for INDI:EDUC. You can find the code in the following lines:

• github.com/Jefferson49/MyCustomTags/blob...yCustomTags.php#L178
• github.com/Jefferson49/MyCustomTags/blob...ducationType.php#L35

The MyCustomTags module is a template how those kind of type definition can be managed. If you want to use it for your puroposes, it needs to be adopted to your specific needs. If you can specify what is needed, I can support.
  

 

Jefferson49,

I'm intrigued by the possibility to create custom TYPE subtags for specific GEDCOM facts, as well as creating a limited set of custom tags using both FACT.TYPE and EVENT.TYPE facts. For example:

Adding a military tag would look like this:
1 EVEN <battle name>
2 TYPE Military

or a DNA attribute like:
1 FACT <DNA group name>
2 TYPE DNA

I also have "typed" GEDCOM tags entries like:

1 MARR
2 TYPE Civil

1 MARR
2 TYPE Religious

I'm not a PHP programmer, but if your module is well documented I may be able to work something up when I have time!

Jefferson49 wrote:

> Is it possible to, I'll use the word, 'setup' a Fact Tag that has Gotra as the Type and a dropdown 

Yes, with a custom module, you can also create "custom types", which webtrees will show in the related dropdown menus.

I use custom types a lot for my own data and created the  MyCustomTags  module, which provides all addittional types I need for different GEDCOM elements. For example, I created additional types for INDI:EDUC. You can find the code in the following lines:

• github.com/Jefferson49/MyCustomTags/blob...yCustomTags.php#L178
• github.com/Jefferson49/MyCustomTags/blob...ducationType.php#L35

The MyCustomTags module is a template how those kind of type definition can be managed. If you want to use it for your puroposes, it needs to be adopted to your specific needs. If you can specify what is needed, I can support.
  

 

A Very quick one line addition got this working for a FACT tag.. We can set the FACT type Gotra by Dropdown selection And once used the FACT can be added by typing in first time then start typing and options appear..

There is probably a bit of stuff not required.. @Jefferson49 are you ok if I or, @Mahesh and or @norwegian_sardines and or any other who may want to, make alterations to your module to suit individual requirements?? That mentioning add or remove code to suit!!

Wow, great stuff @Jefferson49

> There is probably a bit of stuff not required..  @Jefferson49  are you ok if I or,  @Mahesh  and or  @norwegian_sardines  and or any other who may want to, make alterations to your module to suit individual requirements?? That mentioning add or remove code to suit!!

Yes, you are welcome! Indeed, this is the reason why I shared the module on Github. The module contains the code structures based on my own types, which obviously do not suit for others. Therefore, it shall be adopted to other users needs.

Some time ago, I have started to take first steps to make the types customizable in the webtrees front end. I might publish a customizable version in the future.

I am not a friend of creating own tags.
A custom tag will probably not be used often in your data and for sure not in other peoples data and/or genealgy software.
Splittering a life into tags is not useful at all. you should not compare lifes this way.
I would use a simple note.

p.s.: I dont know what a Gotra is, it never came up in my life and the life of the people I know. 
pps: don't put people in a drawer by using tags. Let people as they are. Religion, and so on ... doesn't matter, people are humans with dignity and rights.

Jefferson49 wrote:

> There is probably a bit of stuff not required..  @Jefferson49  are you ok if I or,  @Mahesh  and or  @norwegian_sardines  and or any other who may want to, make alterations to your module to suit individual requirements?? That mentioning add or remove code to suit!!

Yes, you are welcome! Indeed, this is the reason why I shared the module on Github. The module contains the code structures based on my own types, which obviously do not suit for others. Therefore, it shall be adopted to other users needs.

Some time ago, I have started to take first steps to make the types customizable in the webtrees front end. I might publish a customizable version in the future.
 

Thank You So Much..

Still have some questions to followup with not so much with the Module, but there may be a few.

I and prob Mahesh will need some guidance using find and replace regex to change the current Gedcom tag for Gotra to an INDI Fact being xxx (a few different xxx's) with type being Gotra.
 

 

> 'INDI:BIRT:_GOTR' => new Birth(I18N::translate('Gotra'), ),

You have based your tag on "Birth". This means it will get the same subtags as "Birth", which is probably not what you want.

It may be better to use "CustomElement" instead.

Also, your screenshot shows "INDI:GOTRA", but you are adding "INDI:BIRT:_GOTR"

These are different. Do you want this to be a "top level" fact, or an attribute of the birth?

I guess a top-level attribute would be better.
I don't know what subtags you want here, but SOUR and NOTE are probably a good choice.

According to Wikipedia, Gotra can have one of 8 values. If this is correct, then you can create your own Gotra tag with the 8 options defined. This will make data entry simpler. Look at the NameType element to see how this is implemented.

> Fatal error: strict_types declaration must be the very first statement in the script

As the error says, strict_types must be the first PHP statement in a script. You presumably have other statements above it. Can't give more help without seeing your code.

I'm overwhelmed by the support you all have given me. I've been working with databases since the 1980s, but this is my first experience with GEDCOM, and I can already tell there's a lot to learn.
Having looked at the solutions by Greg,  @fisharebest and @Jefferson49, my son were inspired and thought we 'll have a go at some simple suff. So with help of AI to do the hard suff, we got a short module ( github.com/upavadi/intl_hindu ) that generates the following: I'm quite pleased that we were able to accomplish this. Once I gain a deeper understanding of the GEDCOM standard, I may revisit this to see if any improvements are needed.Thank you, everyone! I also have a couple of questions about data migration, so I'll be back soon.

I would not do this, rather I would do this:

 

fisharebest wrote:

> Fatal error: strict_types declaration must be the very first statement in the script

As the error says, strict_types must be the first PHP statement in a script. You presumably have other statements above it. Can't give more help without seeing your code.

Greg,

Thanks for the response and info.. I shall indeed check things further.. 

With regard to the Error, it is generated from the amitys-dot-com module.php.. there are three commented lines above the declare statement, so I moved the declare statement to under the <?php..

 

Thanks @Ken.
I take your point. Gedcom presents a steep learning curve, but I am slowly getting there.
I have another issue with this module where "removing atag from dropdown list" is not working. I shall come back to this when I have some deeper understanding.