[mkgmap-dev] Text format for TYP files

Sat Jan 16 22:52:13 GMT 2010

On Fri, Jan 15, 2010 at 10:23:51PM +0100, Felix Hartmann wrote:
> > Do you know the author of maptk?  Could he be convinced to release the
> > source code of the TYP compiler under the GPL?  If not, how much and how
> > often has the PRJ file format been changed in the past?  In other words,
> > would it be reasonable to write an independent PRJ to TYP compiler?
> >
> >    
> I know him a bit from naviuser.at and naviboard.de online forums. The 
> PRJ format seems to have been consistent since I can remember. The GUI 
> editor has been changing a bit in the past however (especially in the 
> regard to what it finds correct and incorrect, so some things before 
> being corrected had to be written in text for implementation). I have no 
> clue whether he would be willing to release that part of code under GPL.
> 
> If you like I could forward (send him a link) our conversation and we 
> could see what he responds.

We could do that, but I just got another idea: I will create a simple
TYP file with http://ati.land.cz/gps/typdecomp/ and try to decompile
it by hand into source file(s) that would be compiled with GNU Assembler
to the TYP file.  That should be enough for my immediate needs, to define
some line styles.  I will probably need a couple of weeks for that.

POI icons could be converted to a suitable format by a script based on
NetPBM (or ImageMagick or some other graphics conversion toolset) and od.

An important consequence of this approach would be that there would be no
GUI for editing the TYP files (except a graphics editor for the POI icons).
A GUI-driven code generator could of course be implemented later.

Another important consequence would be that the source file(s) would
explicitly define each and every byte in the output file.  The complexity
would be hidden by defining and using appropriate macros and symbols.

	Marko