Flags

Every record in a plans database carries one flag that qualifies its value. The catalog ships with the package and seeds the flags table when a database is created. This page is built from the same file.

The sign of the flag carries meaning. Positive flags always come with a measured value: regular is the default, raw marks values as they came from the instrument, consisted marks values validated by quality control, and suspect is set automatically on insert when a regular value falls outside the variable domain. Flags of zero or below mean there is no measured value, and only they allow an empty value: a gap reported by the source (void), an analysis that was not done or does not apply, or a result below the detection limit. A nondetect record may hold the detection limit instead of an empty value.

Because censored records hold a limit rather than a measurement, analyses should select records by flag before computing statistics, instead of averaging every record of a spec.

Value	Name	Alias	Meaning
4	consisted	CON	Value consisted (validated) by quality control
3	raw	RAW	Raw value from the measurement, before any processing
2	suspect	SUS	Value outside the variable domain
1	regular	OK	Regular value
0	void	NAN	Null or Void value
-1	notanalysed	N.A.	Not analysed
-2	notapplicable	N.Ap.	Not applicable
-3	nondetect	N.D.	Not detected, value holds the detection limit when known
-4	notanalysed_brcast	N.A.BrCast	Not investigated due to lack of standardization in BrCAST
-5	notanalysed_zone	N.A.Zone	Not investigated because the meropenem inhibition zone was >28 mm