Re: gEDA-dev: Really Unique component identifiers

[Bernd Jendrissek <berndj-at-NOSPAMprism_dot_co_dot_za>]

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On Fri, Jun 08, 2007 at 06:37:14PM +0200, Peter TB Brett wrote:
> This is a big change.  Why is this needed?  What will it be used for?  

I hope my other reply addresses some of this.  I don't really think it's
such a big change. :)

> Potential problems?  File format backward compatibility?

No, the unique-id itself would be just another attribute.  The file
format incompatibilities will come later.  I don't think it will be good
to preserve backwards file format compatibility if the cost will be to
(silently!) break symbol/part mappings when editing the schematic with a
too-old gschem.  But this debate can come later.

> Interaction with component library system?

The component library would be void of this uuid attribute; libgeda
would add it to an object on creation, so that it gets assigned each
time you place a component.

> I'm much more a fan of human-readable identifiers than cryptic numbers
> if at all possible.  At the moment symbols are uniquely identified by
> their "symbol name", which can be an arbitrary string.

Well... just HOW human-readable does it need to be?  All I need is
uniqueness and permanence, so I'd just go for some base64-like encoding
of seconds since 1970-01-01 + getpid() + n bytes from /dev/urandom.

What is this "symbol name"?  If you're referring to object.name which
the other Peter mentioned, then no, I don't think it will suffice to
record associations between COMPLEX'es.

> Peter C. and I planned to assign each circuit a unique identifier in
> our new data structures, so that refdes would just be another
> attribute.  However, we had the luxury of starting from a blank slate.

IMHO that's exactly what refdes *should* be!  It should be for things
like generating BOMs and netlists, not for object identity.

- -- 
There is a lot of food in a supermarket, too, but a supermarket isn't
the best place to hold a dinner party. -- Christopher Faylor
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