[OSM-dev] OSM XML declaration, JOSM, Osmosis et al.

[Roland Olbricht]

Hello everybody,

A question to all maintainers of OSM XML processing software: What 
combinations of root tag attributes do you expect for XML with and without 
meta data?

If I deliver from Overpass API to JOSM the XML data with meta data and with a 
plain <osm> tag, JOSM crashes with a NullPointerException on the first version 
attribute.

If I deliver, as suggested from a JOSM developer, with a
<osm version="0.6" generator="Overpass API"> root tag, JOSM and Osmosis both 
complain about the absence of version attributes on the individual OSM 
elements for data without meta data.

Having OSM data with or without meta data is really a useful feature. The same 
data with meta data is three times bigger than without, in a context, where 
data size matters, and the meta data is usually only needed when one wants to 
re-upload the data to the main database.

So what attributes would you, as a toolmaker, expect on the root tag for OSM 
data with or without meta data?

Cheers,

Roland