Re: [Gedcom-parse-devel] Re: Gedcom-parse

[prapp <pr...@er...>]

>Lifelines doesn't seem to be very strict on the Gedcom spec.
>It will take a lot of work to have compatibility, but eventually
>it will have to be done...

I'd go much further, and say LifeLines doesn't care much about
the spec, frankly. You can maintain GEDCOM data that is completely
correct by the lineage-linked standard (when you enter new records,
just don't leave blank values in places that they aren't legal in
lineage-linked GEDCOM), but you can also maintain event-linked
GEDCOM if you wish, or almost any homebrew type of GEDCOM.

The LifeLines UI only really understands lineage-linked GEDCOM,
but it doesn't much help you maintain perfectly correct
lineage-linked GEDCOM, so the onus is on the user to know the
rules. I imagine that the best course of action is what Geert is
doing -- exporting it & running it thru a parser, and finding out,
however painfully, what the rules are :)

- Perry

PS: The "1 TIME" bug in the header was reported & fixed in LifeLines
only recently (it should, as Peter says, be "2 TIME"). In fact, the
headers were missing some other mandatory lines until recently.

PPS: A nifty little LifeLines program that outputs a database in
GEDCOM, but fills in placeholders for blank values that are not
legally blank, would be nice...