--------
Richard Robinson wrote:
| I wonder whether the X: line used for this, since I'm not sure what other
| use there is for it. Does any software currently use the X: line for
| anything (other than the ease-of-parsing start-of-tune marker) ? I think
| it was supposed to be a way of giving a unique id to each tune in a file ?
| Could it not be extended to give each tune a unique id on a system ?
...
| This is a top-of-the-head suggestion, please shoot it down ... I need some
| form of system-wide tune ID's. I can always lash up something peculiar (!)
| to this system, of course, but if we can agree on something more generally
| useful, that would be better.
Some people do just this. For example, look at:
http://www.capecod.net/~bblack/
He uses a 6-digit X field, with the first two digits a "volume"
number in his own private classification. Several other people have
done something similar. This seems to work pretty well for a unique
id within a single ABC collection. All that's really needed is a way
to also identify the collection.
The main thing that shoots this down from the viewpoint of a web-wide
id is that other people are incredibly lax about the X index. I've
had to add code to my Tune Finder to deal with things like duplicate
X indexes and numbers that contain periods. Some people can't be
bothered to use X at all, and if your software can't handle that,
well, it's your problem, not theirs.
So the main problem is the difficulty of enforcing any particular way
of doing this, given the obstinacy of many ABC users. The best we can
hope to do is to come out with some recommendations. "If you want
your online tune collection to be maximally useful, here are some
guidelines ..."
One thing I've wondered: While it seems clear that the X header line
should have a number (integer?) after the colon, it's not obvious
that there should be any problem with following it with some more
"junk" that most software would ignore. That junk could be a more
useful id string that might include an email address or URL to lead a
reader to the file's owner. Is there any software that would do
anything other than give a warning message for such extra X junk?
For example, I have online copies of the three O'Neill's books that
have been transcribed to ABC. O'Neill numbered the tunes in his
books, and that number is the obvious X index. But if it wouldn't
bother any software, it would be useful if I could augment it along
the lines of:
X:123 "O'Neill's 1001"
T:Young Francis Mooney
...
X:123 "O'Neill's 1850"
T:Old Truagh
...
X:123 "O'Neill's Waifs"
T:Jackson's Silver Mines
Note that in this case, having X:123 for each tune isn't a problem,
as these tunes will never be in the same file - or even in the same
directory - in my online collection. But still, it would be useful if
the tune id stated right at the start which collection it is from.
To subscribe/unsubscribe, point your browser to: http://www.tullochgorm.com/lists.html
