[OSM-dev] API 0.6 and changeset tags

Jochen Topf jochen at remote.org
Sun Jan 11 07:46:34 GMT 2009


On Sun, Jan 11, 2009 at 11:21:37AM +1000, Hugh Barnes wrote:
> On Sun, 11 Jan 2009 01:01:50 +0100
> Frederik Ramm <frederik at remote.org> wrote:
> 
> >     for 0.6 editing, JOSM will stop adding "created_by" tags to 
> > individual objects (and might even remove existing ones, subject to 
> > discussion) because I consider this unecessary database pollution. 
> > Instead, the software and version will be available from the
> > changeset tags. I assume that other editors will behave likewise?
> > 
> > Does anyone want to suggest a set of tags for the changeset? The API 
> > wiki page uses, in an example, "created_by=JOSM 1.61". I am slightly
> > in favour of doing something like
> > 
> > client=JOSM
> > client-version=1234
> > 
> 
> I'd rather use the term "user-agent", simply because this is closer to
> what already works well (HTTP). Align where we can, I say.

+1

And put the version inside the same header after a slash. For instance

user-agent=JOSM/7.2

This format is used in many other places in Internet protocols. See
here:

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Agent

I am not sure about the "-". Thats used in HTTP and E-Mail-Headers for
instance, but we have "traditionally" used the underscore "_" instead
for keeping words apart. So maybe its:

user_agent=Potlatch/1.2.3

> > For JOSM, I also intend to add something like
> > "client-plugins=a,b,c,d" where the installed plugins are listed but
> > that's subject to discussion (may be deemed to invade user's privacy
> > because everyone can then see what plugins he's using).
> > 

What would the client plugins list tell you? Why do you want it? I could
imagine this for some plugins that actually change some of the data
inputted. The existence of, say a WMS plugin, won't tell you whether it
was actually used when creating this changeset.

So maybe this should only be done for some plugins and only of they were
actually used in this case (whatever that means).

Jochen
-- 
Jochen Topf  jochen at remote.org  http://www.remote.org/jochen/  +49-721-388298





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