Hash Codes

There are times when a single survey observation needs to be used for more than one feature.  For instance, there may be more than one underground services meeting in an access manhole or the start point of an embankment where the top and bottom are the same point.  In n4ce, you can only assign one code to a point so where an observation is to be used more than once, duplicate points must be created.

In the field, you can use hash codes to define multiple codes for a point or observation.  A hash code is a code string where multiple codes are separated by the hash character ‘#’.  When a point that has a hash code is imported into n4ce, the multiple codes are extracted.  A copy of the point or observation is then created for each of the extracted codes.  If we take the example below, two points or observations will be created.  The first will be code as TB01 and the second BB12.

TB01#BB12

Note that codes that are separated by the hash sign all need to follow the current code import convention.  Therefore, you can assign different comma codes and dimension values to the copies of the points that are created.  An example of this is where more than one pipe enters or leaves a manhole.  In this case, you can assign a dimension to each code specifying the appropriate pipe diameters.  If, however, a point is assigned a dimension that is not part of the code, the dimension will be applied to all hash code copies of the point.