A record,
traceable to its table and its file.
Registers, cost systems and asset databases hold facts nobody wrote as prose. The handler reads tables and rows as records, keeping the column names, so a row can be cited like any other passage.
LLX-HANDLER-DB · R2 · 4 formats
Three things a CSV dump of a database loses.
Column meaning
Field names and types are read, so a date column is a date and a reference is a reference.
Table relations
Keys between tables are read as relations, so a record can be followed to what it points at.
Row identity
Each row keeps its table, its key and its file, which is what makes it citable at all.
The questions registers usually decide.
What a register recorded
A row is cited with its columns, so the register speaks for itself instead of being summarised.
RecordWhether an entry was changed
Versions of an extract are compared row by row, and changed fields are listed.
IntegrityHow a figure reached a claim
A claimed amount is followed back through the tables that produced it, to the file it lives in.
QuantumRead in place, in the format it arrived in.
The file is never converted or re-saved. It is read where it lies, and the handler records a SHA-512 of the bytes it read — so a passage cited today can be replayed against the same file years from now.