>> I understand that a lot of this data is >> available throughout the web using old snapshots and diffs but this >> comes in outdated formats and is by no way complete or easy to use. > > Keep in mind that while a full database dump will give you some things that > are not in the old planet files, but the reverse is true as well - there is > information in the old planet files (pre-0.5) that is not in the database > and thus will not be part of a history dump. Specifically this applies to > pre-0.5 way history. This is not really a big deal execpt for those who > would hope to make "OSM history animations" going back farther than API 0.5.
I had not thought of that. When I first used OSM, segments were long gone so I tend to forget those. There are a few planet dumps from those time but none before 060403 and no diffs (which would be required to fully reconstruct the history). While I'm of course interested in the most complete history possible I don't know if this data would be easy to integrate. As I understand it all the old segments that weren't part of a way were converted to a way and all 0.4-ways were just migrated to 0.5-ways (segments to node reference). I suppose segments that were part of at least one way were not converted to a way? So we'd need to: - Find the segments for "previously unwayed segment"-ways and incorporate their history into the way. As the new way starts at version 1 this would have to be a hack (version 0, counting backwards or something like that). - For ways we'd need to find the history data of the segments they were made of and "merge" that into the history of the way, again requiring versions before "1" I don't know if it is worth the trouble but on the other hand it would be nice to have a complete history. Especially as this would have to be done only once. But as I said: My knowledge of pre 0.5 times is limited at best and I'd be happy if you/someone else could tell me if what I wrote makes sense. I'd certainly be willing to have _a look_ at this, too. Thanks for pointing this out! Lars _______________________________________________ dev mailing list [email protected] http://lists.openstreetmap.org/listinfo/dev
