Lookup Tables

Lookup tables contain basic facts that are not specific to an experiment and are fairly persistent. Their contents are typically small. In GUIs, lookup tables are often used for drop-down menus or radio buttons. In computed tables, they are often used to specify alternative methods for computations. Lookup tables are commonly populated from their contents property. In a diagram they are shown in gray. The decision of which tables are lookup tables and which are manual can be somewhat arbitrary.

The table below is declared as a lookup table with its contents property provided to generate entities.

@schema
class User(dj.Lookup):
     definition = """
     # users in the lab
     username : varchar(20)   # user in the lab
     ---
     first_name  : varchar(20)   # user first name
     last_name   : varchar(20)   # user last name
     """
     contents = [
          ['cajal', 'Santiago', 'Cajal'],
          ['hubel', 'David', 'Hubel'],
          ['wiesel', 'Torsten', 'Wiesel']
          ]