[OSM-talk] Giving everything a unique ID

[John Smith]

On 4 June 2010 00:07, Anthony <osm at inbox.org> wrote:
> *The node/way/relation gets tagged with uuid=*, where * is generated using
> an algorithm expected to create a universally unique id (I'll let someone
> more expert determine how, but I was thinking some sort of hash on the xml
> of the feature itself plus the time).  If a lat/lon pair is created then a
> new node is created with that uuid.

This is why I included links to RFC 4122, this already covers
generating UUIDs in a standard way and that way we avoid trying to
reinvent the wheel, plus there is already UUID libraries.

> *A wiki page is set up where http://domain/wiki/UUID has text, links, and a
> slippy map.  The slippy map highlights the element which has the UUID.  The
> text is meant to be brief - only enough to uniquely identify the "thing"
> (perhaps the description text could even be duplicated in a uuid_description
> tag).  Links would be used for the actual interesting data about the
> "thing".

This wiki page could also contain a list of existing references IDs
from import sources, that way if you know the source and the ID from
the source you can find the OSM UUID.

> Please note that I've abandoned the functionality of having multiple uuids
> on a single element (e.g. uuid:building and uuid:shop).  I felt that this
> overcomplicates things from the standpoint of someone clicking on "make
> permanent link" - they shouldn't have to know anything about the internal

I disagree, lets call shop and building UUID tag types, when you want
to create a unique ID and only one of these UUID tag types exists it
simply gets added as uuid=* or uuid:<UUID tag type>=*, alternatively
if there is multiple a dialog could simply ask which UUID tag type
they wish to add, similar to other JOSM preset dialogs.