[OSM-talk] Giving everything a unique ID

simon at mungewell.org simon at mungewell.org
Thu Jun 3 01:04:18 BST 2010


> On 3 June 2010 05:22,  <simon at mungewell.org> wrote:
>> What would be the purpose of (say) a 2D barcode displayed in the window?
>> I
>> mean, you're all ready there....
>
> The purpose is to give things a unique ID, the QR code could embed a
> very unique ID and then that ID can be used to identify that location
> in OSM, rather than trying to use OSM object IDs which may change.
>
>> What 'we' could do is provide a auto-magic image/QR-Code/DataMatrix
>> containing a 'short code URL' to a map of the location displayed in
>> OpenStreetMap on the 'data' page for that node.
>
> The point is people are consistently told OSM IDs shouldn't be
> considered as unique as the object could be deleted/merged/whatever
> and so the previous ID is no longer valid even if the object exists
> with other IDs.
>

The 'shortlink' does not describe an object with OSM, it describes a
location on the planet (akin to a lat/long).

ie:
http://osm.org/go/0EEQCvG5-?m

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Shortlink

Cheers,
Simon







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