[Kst] Re: Benefit vs risk of constant-width columns + GUI proposal

[Brisset, Nicolas]

Hi Peter,

> It depends on the position of the row. For the 310 MB gyrodata file
and
> column 3 the speedup
> is from 4.0s to 2.5 s. The more right the column is the greater the
> speedup will be.
OK, if it's so much, then let's keep it. Especially as 3 columns is
really little. We routinely have files with many more columns than that!

> Then the data is not loaded correctly, when such option is enabled we
must
> trust the user.
> To fix this we could add an expensive function which analyzes the data
and
> tells the user
> what for optimizations could be used and sets them for the data.
Adding an expensive function sounds bad. But do we get a return status
from atof() when there is an issue (like a ; in the characters, or more
than one figure sequence)? If so, we should remember it and pop up a
dialog or output a warning to the log class telling the user that there
was an issue while loading the data and that he should check his
settings. If atof() already has that, the overcost of testing the return
value should be very small. 

> Yes, better than the current GUI. I would name "Free width" a bit
> different, maybe "Width of columns is not predictable"
I'd suggest "Make no assumption on column width", which sounds a bit
like danger...
Should I go ahead and commit that, so that you can then adapt the code
to it? If we do that, we only have to try and keep as much compatibility
as possible with the old .kst files. That may be a bit tricky and I
don't think we can achieve 100% compatibility, but at least the most
common options (whitespace, or custom delimiter) should be reloaded
correctly. I think at this stage breaking the .kst format is still
doable, but it's the kind of things we have to be very cautious about.
!!! Barth, what do you think: would that be a major issue? !!!

> Auto-detecting the column delimiter is a nice idea (with all it's
> consequences).
> Postponing it and making a ticket sound good. We could collect there
all
> the ideas, and maybe having
> the new features out there are other new ideas.
Yes, there are still a couple of other things linked with ASCII which we
can keep in mind for later (units, ASCII configs, correctly reading time
in the form hh:mm:ss, auto-detection of delimiters, ...)
I'll take care of keeping bugzilla up-to-date.

Nicolas


Eurocopter Deutschland GmbH
Sitz der Gesellschaft/Registered Office: Donauwoerth
Registergericht/Registration Court: Amtsgericht Augsburg HRB 16508
Vorsitzender des Aufsichtsrates/Chairman of the Supervisory Board: Dr. Lutz Bertling
Geschaeftsfuehrung/Board of Management:
Dr. Wolfgang Schoder, Vorsitzender/CEO; Friedrich-Wilhelm Hormel; Ralf Barnscheidt

CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE 

This communication and the information it contains is intended for the addressee(s) named above and for no other persons or organizations. It is confidential and may be legally privileged and protected by law. The unauthorized use, copying or disclosure of this communication or any part of it is prohibited and may be unlawful. 
If you have received this communication in error, kindly notify us by return e-mail and discard and/or delete the communication. Thank you very much. 
It is possible for e-mails to be intercepted or affected by viruses. Whilst we maintain virus checks on our e-mails, we accept no liability for viruses or other material which might be introduced with this message.