farmOS
Demo farmOS

Terms

Vocabularies (also referred to as taxonomies or ontologies) are used to organize and manage Terms used in various contexts throughout farmOS. These can be used for flagging, categorization, and organization of other record types.

Most Terms in farmOS are user-defined, and the vocabularies are empty when farmOS is first installed. As Logs and Assets are created, Terms that are used to describe them are automatically generated in the appropriate vocabularies. These can then be used to filter records in the future.

Type

Each term must have a type, which is a reference to the vocabulary that it is in. Vocabularies are defined by modules, and are only available if their module is enabled. The modules included with farmOS define the following vocabularies:

  • Animal type
  • Log category
  • Material type
  • Plant type
  • Product type
  • Season
  • Unit

ID

Each Term will be assigned two unique IDs in the database: a universally unique identifier (UUID), and an internal numeric ID.

The UUID will be unique across farmOS databases. The internal ID will only be unique to a single farmOS database. Therefore, the farmOS API uses UUIDs to ensure that IDs pulled from multiple farmOS databases do not conflict. Internally, farmOS modules use the internal IDs to perform CRUD operations.

Attributes

Terms have a number of attributes that serve to describe their meta information. All Terms have the same standard set of attributes. Modules can add additional attributes.

Standard attributes

Attributes that are common to all Term types include:

  • Name
  • Description
  • Ontology URI
  • Weight

Name

Terms must have a name.

Description

Optionally, Terms may have a description.

Ontology URI

Terms may link to one or more external ontology URIs.

Weight

The Term's weight determines how it is ordered in the vocabulary. See related "Parent" relationship below for organizing Terms into a hierarchy.

Relationships

All Terms have the same standard set of relationships. Modules can add additional relationships.

Standard relationships

Relationships that are common to all Term types include:

  • Parent
  • Images
  • Files

Parent

Terms can specify "Parent" Terms to create a hierarchy. See related "Weight" attribute above for ordering Terms within the hierarchy.

Images

Images can be attached to Terms. This provides a place to store associated photos.

Files

Files can be attached to Terms. This provides a place to put documents such as Shapefiles, PDFs, CSVs, or other associated files.

Type-specific fields

In addition to the fields that are common to all Term types described above, some types add additional type-specific fields. These include:

Plant Type Terms

Terms in the "Plant type" vocabulary have the following additional attributes:

  • Days to maturity (Integer)
  • Days to transplant (Integer) (Added by the optional Transplanting module)
  • Days of harvest (Integer)

And the following additional relationships:

  • Companions (references other Terms in the "Plant type" vocabulary)
  • Crop family (references a Term in the "Crop Family" vocabulary)