Information missing in GPX-file

[+henning.jakobsen]

Hi

I want 'Personal notes' in the GPX file,

and favorite poinst and favorite %.

It should be no problem to add new fields to the GPX format.

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they do not harm existing software.

[+NanCycle]

Hi

I want 'Personal notes' in the GPX file,

and favorite poinst and favorite %.

It should be no problem to add new fields to the GPX format.

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they do not harm existing software.

 

I also would love to have the Personal Notes in the GPX file.

A while ago GS put out the question "What additional fields would you like to see in the GPX file," but I don't see that anything ever came of this, so I don't know why they bothered to ask.

[+niraD]

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they do not harm existing software.

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they SHOULD NOT harm existing software.

 

The reality is that at least some existing software will be poorly written, and will barf when provided additional fields. That's why your Account Settings > Preferences page lets you choose from two different GPX versions. If they do add additional fields to the GPX format, then they'll need to continue supporting the others (or at least, the earliest 1.0 version) for backwards compatibility.

[+NYPaddleCacher]

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they do not harm existing software.

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they SHOULD NOT harm existing software.

 

The reality is that at least some existing software will be poorly written, and will barf when provided additional fields. That's why your Account Settings > Preferences page lets you choose from two different GPX versions. If they do add additional fields to the GPX format, then they'll need to continue supporting the others (or at least, the earliest 1.0 version) for backwards compatibility.

 

I don't know that I've seen instance of an application barfing when a field not defined in the schema was added, but a couple of years ago GS changed the value of a String for the cache type (I think) and it broke several. The schema indicates that the field could be "any string" but some apps assumed that it would be one of the short list of cache types (I assume so that it would display an appropriate icon) and broke when the value was something new.

 

 

[+Team DEMP]

The standard says that software should ignore unknown fields, so they SHOULD NOT harm existing software.

 

The reality is that at least some existing software will be poorly written, and will barf when provided additional fields. That's why your Account Settings > Preferences page lets you choose from two different GPX versions. If they do add additional fields to the GPX format, then they'll need to continue supporting the others (or at least, the earliest 1.0 version) for backwards compatibility.

 

There's a difference between versions of a spec and a spec which supports user-specific data. If the current spec supports user-specific data elements, then any app that supports that spec shouldn't break. If it does, it's a defect in the app. If the structure changes or existing data changes, then the spec would have a new version and apps/sites would still want to support older versions.

 

The geocaching.com GPX is still 1.0 as specified in one of the GPX files downloaded:

xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/0

In addition it leverages it's own 1/0/1 version of the old 1.0 spec. In fact, almost everything about a cache is in the geocaching specific namespace. Just open a GPX file from geocaching.com in any text editor and you can see almost anything meaningful starts with Groundspeak: as the user-defined data.

 

There's no reason to NOT enhance the spec or leverage new versions of the spec as no application should fail when new versions of the spec are implemented or supported user-specific extensions are added. If that occurs, it's an app/site defect the developer should correct.

 

Now, the original posters question was on relevant data to output to the GPX file. Without enhancing the spec, if the "personal note" mentioned by the OP didn't need to be it's own unique/structured data element, it could be added/interpreted by any existing app by appending to the cache description or any other existing data field... "Personal note: xxxxxxxxxxxx" . Or they could consider adding Groundspeak:note as another data attribute which wouldn't break anything, but nothing would probably read/display the new data element.