[josm-dev] control characters in config file

[Alan Mintz]

At 2010-12-29 07:18, =?ISO-8859-15?Q?Dirk_St=F6cker?= wrote:
>On Wed, 29 Dec 2010, Alan Mintz wrote:
>
>>>Yes. I used 0x1E (and yes, I know my standards), as semicolon had lots 
>>>of troubles, same with comma and everthing else. E.G. the commit 
>>>comments use all of these characters. Previously it has been ';' as well 
>>>as ',' and some forms of §.
>>
>>I don't mind which character is used - it's just that it's inconsistent 
>>within the file (all of the above are still in use), and undocumented for 
>>the user. I've had to dig into source to find it.
>
>The workarounds have been removed some months ago. There should be nothing 
>left. If there is, tell where and file a bug-report.

I don't really understand what that means. I am saying there are different 
separators visibly present, with different logical meanings (i.e. some 
separate values within a group, some separate groups, etc.). I don't 
understand what could be "wrong" - it is what it is.


>And this will remain undocumented, as this is a internal file format, 
>which a user must not change.

Not sure how documenting it could allow a user to "change" it - simply make 
it possible to edit the file manually, which many of us have been doing. If 
you are saying you want to prevent that, that's a different story, which I 
again have no particular problem with.


>>>The advanced preferences allow to enter fields as well. Generally 
>>>directly editing the josm config-file is not a recommendable thing 
>>>anyway and if the person doing so cannot cope with the 0x1E, then he 
>>>should use the JOSM GUI interface.
>>
>>That doesn't solve it. Some values have no way to enter them other than 
>>the "Advanced Preferences" editor. Could we have meta-data somewhere that 
>>provides a popup when you mouse-over the field in that editor, to tell 
>>you what the separator is, for the cases where there are either none or 
>>one value there and it's not obvious?
>
>What are you talking about? As I told already the advanced preferences 
>allow you to enter collection values. Simply select value and press edit.

If I had known that, it would be different. As it was, before I wrote, I 
double-clicked on the right-side (value) field as I always have and got the 
usual single-row editable field there. Had I taken the longer route of 
clicking the row to select it, then clicking the Edit button (does anyone 
do this normally?), or double-clicked on the left-side (key) field, I'd 
have seen the nice new collection editor to which you refer.


>There is no need to have meta-information or detection of a separator, as 
>there is no separator except the 0x1E.

OK - now that there is a collection editor.

--
Alan Mintz <Alan_Mintz+OSM at Earthlink.net>