Richard Knapp wrote (in a private exchange, reposted with permission)
(I am the even ordered quotes)
>
>>> Which brings up something we haven't discussed: item order control.
>>
>>
>> I see little or no need for that at all. Put the items in any order
>> you want. Do you see any reason that should not be allowed?
>
> Nope. But there is a need for what ever editor is used to present the
> data in the order the data was recorded. I've used programs that
> didn't accept data in the same manner (usually swapping the Inc and
> Azi locations) and I keep typing in "-4.5" in the Azimuth column
> instead of the Inclination one.
Now that I think about it, there IS a problem.
Some existing programs are very picky about the order of the shots. For
instance, I know of some programs that do not allow a station to appear
as a "from" station until it has appeared as "to" (except for the first
station).
Different programs may require incompatible orders in their input.
Others might forget the order as soon as they have read them in, and
can't be counted on to put them out in the same order as they came in.
The most difficult problem that could be caused by this is when a
CaveXML file (which must be assumed to come in an incompatible order)
needs to be converted for use by a program that requires a particular
order. If the order required is complex, this could be very hard, and
there is no way to get around it in general.
There are things that can be done to help many of the actual cases. For
instance, John Halleck proposes (optionally?) including spanning trees
in the file. For reasons that may or may not be the same as his, I
agree. A spanning tree would contain almost exactly the information
required to re-order the shots to be useable by many of the order
sensitive programs.
> Besides, isn't that format part of the original data? (i.e. to
> reproduce your survey book)
You are right! So, by my own principles, I have to concede that there
must at least be an option to preserve that information.
This is important enough that I would like to take it back to the list,
if you have no objection. [there was none]
Ralph Hartley
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