[OSM-talk] keys with multiple values

[Norbert Wenzel]

On 09/15/2014 06:45 PM, moltonel 3x Combo wrote:
> The problem with semicolon-separated values is that you can never be
> sure wether you're looking at multiple values, or one value that
> happens to contain a semicolon. That's part of the reason why other
> tags sometimes use a different separator (a coma, a pipe...). It's
> messy.

As I've mainly thought about name tags (as you may have guessed from my
examples) I still think it's safe to assume there is no name containing
a semicolon (except Little Bobby Tables), but nevertheless you have a
very valid point here. Of course we could define some escape character
like the famous backslash but ... I don't even want to write that stupid
idea down.

> Supporting multiple values natively in the osm data model would
> provide a clean and efficient solution, but updating all the tools to
> support it would be a huge undertaking.

That would be the best solution and should at least be considered for a
next API version, whenever that seems necessary. While I was reading
your mail I just remembered I tried to put multiple values under the
same key when I started with OSM and I was surprised the editors
wouldn't let me do this. So this might also be the most intuitive way to
add multiple values. Some years of OSM made me forget about that. ;-)

Norbert