Re: [Gpsbabel-misc] Re: GPX file structure

[P. R. <ro...@vo...>]

Robert,

> ...  But
> even that abstraction doesn't really work very well in the Real World
> for arbitrary data formats.

Wouldn't say so, as even the most elaborate receivers only support a 
very limited amount of data - with the already supported URL not being 
in this set even.

> This is sort of what we have, but we call 'cmt' "description"
> internally.  In fact, if I simply change that at the GPX edge, I think
> your specific case will work.  Unfortunately, all the rest of the
> formats will break.

Breaking in the sense that you will have to put your fingers once again 
upon them, yes. But which format will support more *pragmatically* 
distinct pieces of information, so it cannot be mapped on to the 
generalized structure?

> In your case, you had both cmt and descr; in some cases we only one or
> worse, neither.  But if you have only one and you're sticking them in a
> receiver, it's better use what you have than to use nothing at all.

Without being a connoisseur of the various formats (so forgive some 
foolishness or shortsightedness on my side :-) I once again reiterate my 
former suggestion to split the complete gpsbabel processing flow into 
three parts:

# Input scan of (possibly several) input files
# Invocation of some intermediate data massaging steps, to prepare
   the read-in data in an appropriate way for the adjacent output step.
   Some of the provided intermediate processing steps here would be
   targeted towards special kinds of receivers, but would at least
   clearly be specifiable.
# Output to the desired format, with the module just ensuring the
   do's and don't's, or producing informative belches otherwise in case
   the intermdediate steps didn't reprocess the incoming data
   apropriately

 > In the land of 20+ file formats, I'm starting to think that arbitrary
 > and automatic conversion of any combination isn't practical and we
 > just have to resign to "best shots" sometimes.

This makes my point of not attempting to go fully automatic for any 
possible conversion, but rely on a minimum of users' educated 
involvement instead.

Regards,
		Peter

-- 
goethe GbR               Vollmer & Roosen GbR     Dr. Peter Roosen
www.goethe-gbr.de        www.linguadapt.de        www.peter-roosen.com
Tel. ++49 241 7091525    Tel. ++49 2451 971437    Tel. ++49 241 7091524
Fax  ++49 241 7091521    Fax  ++49 2451 971439    Fax  ++49 241 7091521

GPS: 50.7383 N, 6.0427 E