Metadatamanagement: Discuss: Allow upper-case letters in variable names

[anneweber]

It is possible that we will receive data sets with upper-case letters in variable names (especially from external projects). These could not be imported into MDM at the moment. If the variable names are changed to lowercase by us, this could be problematic for the rest of the documentation (e.g. variable questionnaires).

[rreitmann]

Following needs to be considered:

• ids (thus variable names) are part of the urls (=> needs to be tested)
• two variables which are "equal" (when they are both lowercased) should not be allowed within one dataset (new post validation, post validation for publishers as well)

[UteH]

@rreitmann so we do [want to] allow upper and lower case if they are NOT "equal" (when they are both lowercased) as tested by the new post validation? ... within a dataset, right?

[rreitmann]

@UteH yep, we will allow this when this has been implemented

[AndyDaniel1]

@anneweber how urgent is this issue from your pov? Do we have/had actual cases where this issue is/was of great concern (with emphasis on great)?

[anneweber]

@AndyDaniel1 We had the concrete case in the SE21 study, but only for a few (max. 5) variables.
But it could be a potential problem, especially for external studies.
(And: should we perhaps include the use of lower case letters in our variable name concept? :sweat_smile: )

[AndyDaniel1]

Thanks for the quick response. As it has no immediate urgency I will lower the prio to 8 as part of the "make twos great again" agenda. Please come back to this issue if the urgency increases in the next weeks.

(Off Topic: I think we should add this to the variable name concept @UteH)