Bug 34965

Summary: Authority match failing due to possible encoding conflicts
Product: Koha Reporter: Esther Melander <esther.melander>
Component: CatalogingAssignee: Bugs List <koha-bugs>
Status: NEW --- QA Contact: Testopia <testopia>
Severity: enhancement    
Priority: P5 - low CC: flyingendpaper, m.de.rooy, mspinney
Version: 22.11   
Hardware: All   
OS: All   
Change sponsored?: --- Patch complexity: ---
Documentation contact: Documentation submission:
Text to go in the release notes:
Version(s) released in:
Circulation function:
Attachments: Example authority

Description Esther Melander 2023-09-29 17:21:58 UTC
Created attachment 156415 [details]
Example authority

In this scenario, the authority record was prepared by Marcive with MARC 8, however the record itself shows that it is UTF-8 in the leader.

To recreate:

1. Ensure there is a record match rule:

Authority 010$a
Match threshold: 1000
Record Type: Authority

Add Match Point
Search index: LC-cardnumber
Score: 1000
Tag: 010
Subfields: a
Offset: 0
Length: 0
Normalization rule: None

Add Match Check
Incoming record check
Tag: blank
Subfields: blank
Offset: 0
Length: 0
Normalization rule: None

2. Stage and import the authority.
Record type: Authority
Encoding: UTF-8 (Default)
Do not look for matching records

The record will import correctly. Check the leader and see that the encoding is UTF-8 (UCS/Unicode).

3. Stage and import the authority again, but look for matching records.
Record type: Authority
Encoding: UTF-8 (Default)
Record matching rule Authority 010$a
Replace the existing record with incoming

Notice the file will not stage, or in other words fail.

4. Delete the example authority from the system.

5. Stage and Import the authority but select MARC 8 for the encoding, no matching. See that it successfully imports. The encoding in the leader still says UTF-8 (UCS/Unicode).

6. Stage and Import the authority using MARC 8 encoding, Authority 010$a matching rule to replace existing. See that the authority successfully stages, matches, and overlays the existing authority.


It is possible there is something unique in the way the authority was prepared as a MARC 8. In other words, if it was prepared as a MARC 8, it should be imported as a MARC 8, regardless of the encoding in the leader. However, the authority did successfully import as a UTF-8 encoded file minus the matching rule. It should be possible to import and overlay the same authority as a UTF-8 encoded authority with a match rule. Other than the encoding statement in the leader, I can't see anything else unique about the authority.