Procedures to use when submitting competition results

Immediately after each meet at which the general memebrship and/or general public can participate the Meet Director must submit the results of the meet to:

1. The editor of ONB Notes. Currently ONB Notes editor(David Ross).
2. The ONB webmaster. Currently David Fellows.
3. The offical ONB statistician. Currently Harold McQuade.

Results should be sent to these people in a standard, comma-separated-values, format. This format can be produced with a simple text-editor on any kind of computer or operating system. If you know what you are about, it can also be produced by most spreadsheet programs.

The particular format we want consists of a sequence of lines. Each line consists of three "values" separated by commas. Sometimes the value can be nothing at all. After processing each line will become a row in a three column table.

A set of results for a tiny meet are shown below in the correct format:

,Mini Meet,
,June 31comma 2004,
,Some Parkcomma Somweherecomma NB,
,,
Meet Director:,Joe Bloggs,
Course Setter:,Jane Doe,
Controller:,B. Smart,
,,
Competitor,Club,Time
,,
COURSE 1, 2.45km, 30m climb
F-12,,
Jill Smith,Foxes,20:23
Joan Williams,Falcons,22:44
Mary Jones, Fundy,DNF
,,
M-Open-1,,
Bill Smith,,30:30
,,

Groups-1,,
Johncomma Joecomma and Mary,Foxes,28:14
,,
COURSE 2, 3.15km, 55m climb
F13-14,,
Jenny Smith,Foxes,25:25
Katie Jones,Fundy,25:35
Mary Williams,Falcons,29:12
,,
M13-14,,
Fred Smith,Foxes,26:26
Bill Williams,Falcons,29:31
Casey Jones,Fundy,29:32
,,

Which, after it has been processed for a web page, will look like this.

Notice that every line contains exactly two commas. Some values like a date need a comma in them. In that situation put "comma" instead. This is illustrated by the date, location and Groups-1 entries above. Alternatively you can enclose the entire bit containing the comma between double quotes. As

"John, Joe, and Mary",Foxes,28:14

Most spreadsheet programs will do this when saving as a csv file..

To facilitate preparing the results a downloadable template file has been prepared. It is complete for "A" meets and can be adapted for "B" meets by deleting the unneeded courses and classes. The first few lines of this template look like:

,Name-of-meet,
,Date-of-meet,
,Place-of-meet,
,,
Meet Director:,name,
Course Setter:,name,
Controller:,name,
,,
Competitor,Club,Time
,,
COURSE 1, dddkm, cccm climb
F-12,,
name,club,mm:ss
,,
M-12,,
,,

Name-of-meet, Date-of-meet, Place-of-meet should be replaced by the appropriate information. name should be replaced by the appropriate official's names. If there is no controller, delete the Controller line. For each course replace the ddd with the course length in kilometres and the ccc with the total climb in metres on the course.

Then for each class add lines with name,club,time in minutes:seconds. Remember, exactly two commas! Leave the ",," line at the end of each class. Put the results in time order, winner first. Put "DNF" or "DSQ" instead of times for competitors who do not get all controls or who punched at an incorrect control respectively. For the F-12 class delete the example line.

Save the file. Use a file name that doesn't contain spaces and that does indicate which meet it is. For example, falcon-cup.csv. Attach the file to an email to the people listed at the top of this page. If you want to add commentary about the meet, put it in a separate file and attach that to the email as well. It will be simpler if commentary is saved as a text file, not some word processor format file.

Score Meets

Score meets need an extra column for points and may have rather different classes than regular meets. This template can be downloaded as a starting point. Notice that each line has three commas. The points are last on the line. Order should be winner first. All the regular age classes are included. You will undoubtedly want to combine them or make up your own classes - feel free. You probably will want to supply a commentary file with maximum points, etc., mentioned.

Multi-day Meets

We will sort that out on a special case basis.

Suggested steps for Windows users

The following is a suggestion as to how you may force Windows to do what you want, rather than do what it wants. The steps were checked on Windows 2000 Professional. They should be pretty much the same on any version of Windows. Internet Explorer 5.5 was the browser I used. Use the Notepad text editor for entering your data.

I assume that your raw data is either scribbled on a piece of paper or is on the punch cards

1. Download the template file.
   1. Start Internet Explorer, navigate to this page.
   2. Right click on the "template files" link mentioned above.
   3. A dialog box opens asking where you want to save the file. Pick a suitable folder ( I will use c:\temp).
   4. Choose "All Files" from the Save as type drop-down menu.
   5. Click Save, note the complete file name (c:\temp\results-template.csv) from the next dialog box and click Close.
2. Enter your data using the Notepad editor.
   1. Start Notepad. Start->Programs->Accessories->Notepad
   2. Select File->Open in the Dialog box
   3. Choose "All Files" in the Files of type drop-down menu
   4. Choose the path to where you saved the file when you downloaded it. (c:\temp)
   5. Select results-template.csv as the file
   6. Click Open
   7. Make the required changes and add the results.
3. Save your file (I will assume that the meet name is mymeet.)
   1. Select File->Save As The dialog box should show the right folder to use
   2. Select "All Files" in the Files of Type drop-down menu
   3. Encoding should be "ANSI" (or maybe "ASCII" in older versions of Windows).
   4. Edit the File Name to be mymeet.csv
   5. Click Save
4. Make your commentary file if there is one.
   1. In Notepad select File->New
   2. Type in your commentary. Put an extra blank line between paragraphs. Don't worry about formatting, fonts, etc.
   3. Select File->Save
   4. In the dialog box edit the file name to be mymeet.txt
   5. Click Save
5. Exit Notepad
6. Send the email using your favourite email program.
   1. Compose email
   2. Attach the attachments. You will get a dialog box in which you specify the file to attach. Select "All Files" in the Files of type drop-down menu. Rummage until you find the files you just created. Select them.
   3. Send the email

Using Spreadsheets

Most spreadsheet programs can import a comma-separated-values file. They can also create them: typically as options in the File->Save As dialog. You could download the template, import it into your favourite spreadsheet and enter the data in the spread sheet. I am 99% sure that you will find Notepad easier and quicker.

If you used a spreadsheet to actually calculate the times, you may want to use it to create the comma-separated-values file from scratch. The major catch is in getting rid of your intermediate results. For example, you could have the names in column 1, club name in column 2, start time in column 3, finish time in column 4 and time calculated by a formula in column 5. To prepare the data for submission you must calculate the values in column 5 and then get rid of columns 3 and 4. Just how you do this depends on your spreadsheet program.

In Corel Quattro Pro 8 you do it by selecting Edit->Convert to values which evaluates the formula cells and then replaces the formula in the cell by its value. Then you delete the columns that you need to delete by selecting the column(s) and then selecting Edit->Delete columns. Of course you also have to add the title and explanatory rows. Selecting File->Save as and choosing File Type as CSV produces the comma-separated-values file.

In OpenOffice.org Calc you select Tools->Cell contents->Auto calculate and uncheck it. Then you press F9 to recalculate all the cells. Then delete the columns you wish gone by selecting them and selecting Edit->Delete cells. Then select File->Save As and set Save as type to Text CSV to actually save the spreadsheet as comma-separated-values.

I am 99.999% sure you can accomplish the same thing in Microsoft Excel or Lotus 1-2-3. I don't know how. If you want to find out and write a paragraph for this document, feel free.

In any event you should check the resulting file with Notepad to see that it really does have the right format and exactly all the required information.

Sample as processed for a web page.

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