RE: [EpiData-list] It is possible to have labels that are inconsistent with previously entered data

Choice 3 makes sense. Perhaps give a warning and assign value label such as "Unknown label 1" At least then every value would have a corresponding unique label. Jamie

Thanks Torsten (and Jens in the other reply). A tool or inconsistency report sounds like a good approach. I encountered this issue when playing with the code to import the epidata XML file into R. When reading such an XML file into R, the I think the options are:

1. do nothing to detect this and have the import fail and spit out a cryptic R error message because the factor levels won't match
2. detect it, report it, and do not apply the labels for this field
3. detect it, report it, and attempt to apply the labels where possible.

I think option 3 will be the least surprising for the user.

David