[mkgmap-dev] Binary OSM file support?

Thu Sep 9 18:55:26 BST 2010

On Wed, Sep 8, 2010 at 2:27 PM, Chris Miller <chris_overseas at hotmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Jeff,
>
> Scott Crosby posted a message to this list back in June asking for comment
> on his binary format. My thoughts at the time were that it looked rather
> promising and adding support for it to the splitter would be a good idea,
> though I was reluctant to use it other than internally if the file format
> wasn't relatively stable because of the maintenance problems that it might
> introduce.

> I haven't been following the discussions on the Osmosis side (and indeed,
> have had hardly any time to dedicate to the splitter lately either), but
> it sounds like this file format is now at release candidate status in Osmosis?

The format is stable, but I want to release one more RC, with a full
validation before I declare it stable. I expect no incompatible
changes.

> If so I think that's great news! I can't speak for the other developers on
> splitter or mkgmap, but personally at least I'd really like to see a revamped
> splitter and mkgmap that can work with the format directly - there are clearly
> some huge benefits to be had from going that route. Perhaps Scott, Steve
> and co can chime in with their thoughts on the topic and where they see things
> heading from here?

I have a version of the splitter that reads the binary file format
sitting in my local git repository, last used a few days ago. I've
been keeping that branch up-to-date with respect to the changes I've
made to the binary format. However, that branch split off last June
and longer applies cleanly due to the various input handling changes
that have happened in the meantime.

My repo has a bunch of other stuff that needs to be cleaned up,
rebased to trunk, tested, and submitted. I'm not sure when I'll have
time, but my repo is public on http://github.com/scrosby/OSM-splitter

Scott