[OSM-talk] RFC: what are empty nodes and how should we use them?

[Pierre-Alain Dorange]

Jonas Stein <news at jonasstein.de> wrote:

> > Yes, but JOSM has a chunked upload mode where it uses multiple 
> > transactions for one upload.
> 
> Can someone confirm, that josm first uploads an empty node 
> and then the content?

Can't confirm ; be it would be very strange to upload an empty node,
then the tag associate... or an empty node then then way associated.
But it coudl happen for ways...
 
> If split uploads contain this emty ones at the moment lets summarise:
> 
> There could be empty nodes during splitted uploads. 
> So nobody should delete nodes that are younger then a given timespan.

The splitted upload has a very short life.
I notice that in my area at a moment a create lot to empty nodes (would
have been associated with a building) when i try to upload a big
changeset (but JOSM failed) so then i use the split upload function from
JOSM and never got the same problem.

>From those expériences, i could say that big upload with JOSM could lead
to dupplicate nodes and empty nodes ; split upload are safer.

> ps: uploads should not split within empty nodes, 
> but thats no topic here for now.

It can't be done, there is circompstance that would lead to empty nodes
upload. Imagine a large way (more than 300 nodes). If JOSM upload with a
split parameter of 200, then it would split during the way+nodes upload
and if for any reason the upload stop there empty nodes have been
transmit to the server...

-- 
Pierre-Alain Dorange