CSV upload > description

[stevieflow]

Can we clarify whether the field for "description" is possible via the CSV upload?

[amercader]

The "description" field is currently not processed on the CSV upload/download.

Should it be?

[stevieflow]

Looking through http://iatiregistry.org/dataset/new it seems that this (along with tags) are the only fields that are not processed.

Description should certainly be so. Just wondered if there might be an unforeseen issue with use of illegal characters / line breaks / formatting though (at the user end more than via the CSV file)?

[amercader]

@stevieflow Although adding support for the description field is easy enough I think this needs significant testing to account for things like encodings, new lines, etc.

I've deployed a patch for supporting this field to the staging site, would be great if you or others could test this extensively (think old CSV files without the field being there, line breaks, etc). After some testing we can assess if it's worth adding (it's probably all right but just want to double check)

[stevieflow]

Thanks Adria - will do some tests

[stevieflow]

We did a test with UNDP data which worked successfully: http://iati2.staging.ckanhosted.com/publisher/undp - but that's just with a single paragraph.

Would there be an option to put a character limit on?

[amercader]

After some testing I've merged this into master. I'd rather not have different validations for the descriptions created via the CSV and the form. If we want to add a character limit we would it for both, but I don't think it will be necessary.

Multiple paragraphs are supported fine, you just need to define them in the markdown way, they should be separated by two line breaks (an empty line in eg Excel). See eg:

http://iati2.staging.ckanhosted.com/dataset/aauk-activities