2.5. Codelists

A codelist can limit the number of permitted values of an attribute. In data modelling terms, a codelist can be seen as an enum(eration) of values allowed. An example codelist of the attribute ‘primaryColors’ could be the enumeration [‘yellow’, ‘blue’, ‘red’], meaning the attribute can only take either one of the three values mentioned. In practice, SIVI AFS codelists don’t have ‘meaningful’ codes, but code values corresponding to code descriptions published in the data catalog. Therefore, the ‘real’ example of the primaryColors-codelist would probably be [‘1’, ‘2’, ‘3’], with all three values corresponding to code descriptions yellow, blue and red.

In AFD 2.0 Online you can find a complete and up-to-date overview of all codelists. More documentation on the use of SIVI AFS is available in chapter Where to find elements of SIVI AFS.

There are two types of codelists: standard and hierarchical. A more thorough description of standard codelists and hierarchical codelists follows in the next sections.