1 Reply by Stuart

  • Stuart
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Re: Species list web-service times out

I am doing a new Dipterists Forum web site. It includes a full checklist of British Diptera. I want to offer a facility to view a 10km distribution map for species where there are records on the Gateway (by displaying an icon in the list which users click to view a map). I don't want to show the icon if there are no records available.

So, the main checklist table has a field, TAXON_VERSION_KEY, and I added a boolean flag to signal whether there are records available on the Gateway or not to drive the display of the icon. To keep this working, I need a process that checks the Gateway periodically and updates these flags.

My idea was to use the SpeciesList web service to get a list of TVKs with records for TaxonReportingCategoryKey = NHMSYS0000080077 ("insect - true fly (Diptera)"), but with no geographical or date constraints, and to walk through the list updating the flags. This would then be run as a scheduled job, say once a week in the small hours of the morning.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. The request times out.

It works OK for smaller groups such as NHMSYS0000080071 (Dragonflies - a few tens of TVKs with data) or even NHMSYS0000080076 (true bugs - Hemiptera - a few hundred TVKs), but Diptera with over 4,000 TVKs with data is clearly too much for it.

I have informed AndyB.

2 Reply by Darwyn Sumner (LERC) (edited by Darwyn Sumner (LERC) 28-02-2008 15:47:51)

  • Darwyn Sumner (LERC)
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  • Registered: 07-06-2006
  • Posts: 176

Re: Species list web-service times out

From a Dipterists Forum Scheme organiser point of view, Stuart's new website - along the lines of this NBN Forum - is going to prove extremely valuable. Other National Scheme people may well find it informative to pay us a visit at http://www.dipteristsforum.org.uk
On a low-key point, I found it pretty straightforward (on my Stilt & Stalk Fly section of the site) to link the taxon names in a small checklist to their Gateway distribution maps as follows:

Tribe: Taeniapterinae (McAlpine, 1989)
Genus: [i]Rainieria[/i] Rondani, 1843
[url=http://www.dipteristsforum.org.uk/sgb_nbn_map.php?id=NBNSYS0000028909]Rainieria calceata (Fallén, 1820)[/url]

(I don't remember putting those italics in, Stuart :/)
The taxon-key s were easily obtained in a distinctly non-tech manner by using the Recorder checklist, the "Find information ... NBN" and then running them to earth on the taxonomic information bit of the NBN Gateway. No doubt others could dream up a more ridiculous way of doing it - but it was late at night and I did have only a dozen or so to do.
I don't envy Stuart the much bigger task of automating the links to 7,000 taxa