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Restore missing metadata from duplicate records

Source: R/restore_duplicates.R
restore_duplicates.Rd

Internal helper that fills missing metadata fields in usable voucher records using values from their associated duplicate records that share the same collection event key.

Usage

restore_duplicates(occ_digital_voucher = NULL)

Arguments

occ_digital_voucher

A data.table of digital voucher records, as produced by internal vouchering steps. Must contain the columns listed in fields_to_parse as well as VasGBIF_dataset_result and collection_key.

Value

A data.table containing only the usable records, with missing metadata fields filled from duplicates where possible and a logical flag VasGBIF_restored_from_duplicate indicating whether restoration occurred for each row.

Details

The function operates on two subsets of the input: records marked "usable" and those marked "duplicate". For each metadata field listed in fields_to_merge (eventDate, year, month, day, identifiedBy, countryCode, stateProvince, locality), it:

  • Identifies usable records whose value for that field is missing, empty, or "NA".

  • Searches the duplicate records with the same collection_key for a non-missing candidate value of reasonable length (no more than 10,000 characters).

  • Copies the first valid candidate into the usable record and sets VasGBIF_restored_from_duplicate = TRUE.

The year field receives special treatment: after cleaning, the candidate text is coerced to integer.

Only the usable records (with restored fields) are returned.