RE: [Phpgedview-talk] XML genealogy format

[Alex R. <sh...@gr...>]

Roger,

Thanks for the feedback!

On Tue, 2005-10-25 at 13:41 -0600, Roger Winget wrote:
> I've looked over the sample XML file ( http://www.gramps-project.org/file=
s/data.gramps )
> and have a few comments.
>=20
> Your major tags have both an id and handle.  Just stick with one.

This is our existing format, and here's why we're using both at the
moment. The "handle" is the unique ID assigned by GRAMPS. It will never
be changed for a given person. The "id" is the user-visible ID that can
be changed, either manually (discouraged) or by re-ordering the IDs
from program tool. We're using both for the sake of backward
compatibility with the earlier GRAMPS formats. This does not have
to be the case for the general cross-software format.

What I envision for the more general format is that there will
be a single user-visible ID and possibly many software-specific IDs:
   <person id=3D"I0001">
      <uid source=3D"gramps" id=3D"_AKSD23234KHK432JH"/>
      <uid source=3D"phpgedview" id=3D"0234-lkj"/>
      <uid source=3D"ftm" id=3DFTM0123-P012"/>
      blah
   </person>
This way the unique IDs assigned by any program that processed the
data can be kept, without affecting either the user-visible IDs
or each other.

> I think given and surname are better labels than first and last as some c=
ultures
> reverse the order of names. I would suggest a fullname tag or attribute t=
hat shows
> all the name parts in the correct order.
>=20
> I suggest making change into its own tag that allows us to specify WHO ma=
de the change,
> not just the date of the last change.

Agreed.

> Date fields should accept partial dates, and should support BC.

This is already supported:
   <dateval val=3D"1897" type=3D"about"/>

Supported are: about, before, after, between A and B, from A to B,
estimated, calculated, as well as dates with missing day or month,
as well as the textual dates ("Christmas before John was born")
and BC. We should probably make a separate example featuring
all supported dates, I won't list the XML here.

> In this politically correct world, any new XML format should allow 2 moms=
 or 2 dads as well
> as a single parent within a family.  Also on the note of families, the XM=
L format should
> allow us to indicate the relationship of a child to a family (ie biologic=
al, adopted).

A missing "father" or "mother" tag would be a single parent.
The "mother" and "father" can be any gender, so 2 female parents or
2 male parents are supported. The relationship of child to a family
is already recorded. The default is birth (biological) and is omitted
in XML. But if it's anything else then:
   <childof hlink=3D"_S7MT6D1JSGX9PZO27F" mrel=3D"Stepchild" frel=3D"Adopte=
d"/>
where relationship to father (frel) and mother (mrel) do not have
to be the same.

> I would clean up the tag and attribute names a bit, but overall it's a gr=
eat start.

Thanks! The question I would like to ask is whether there is interest
outside GRAMPS to support similar XML format for data exchange. We are
happy with using this format, and keep adjusting it as we add new
features and fix bugs.

It seems that the wider genealogical community could benefit from
having a documented and extensible format that would be:
   1. improving GEDCOM's shortcomings
   2. community-supported: not tied to any single organization, church, etc
   3. naturally extensible: X in XML :-)
   4. supported by numerous XML tools: parsing, validation, transformations=
, etc

So while we definitely welcome the feedback on our format, we'd like
to collaborate with other genealogical software developers to develop
something common that we all can natively support.

Sorry for being redundant :-)
Alex

--=20
Alexander Roitman   http://www.gramps-project.org