I have just updated the Log4OM support for SOTA due to further syntax changes in the SOTA download file and additional associations have been added, including Taiwan.
I have requested that the SOTA summit list include the DXCC reference for the associations a couple of times but this has not been provided. This omission causes developers of external software additional work to maintain support of this excellent award system.
We are fully occupied in developing version 2.0 of Log4OM and it stops our own development when we have to be side-tracked to do constant updates to support SOTA, so we would welcome some assistance with SOTA file maintenance from an existing Log4OM user until such time as SOTA include the DXCC reference in their summit list…
It’s a reasonable request at first glance especially as we do now have the DXCC info for each association. However, adding DXCC to the current file would break every single piece of software, every app and every script everyone is using as the file would no longer be compatible. Everything would need to be rewritten to accommodate the additional field. Worse is I’m fairly sure there are some apps out there which are perfectly usable but are no longer maintained. So breaking backwards compatibility is not an option at this point.
Andrew VK3ARR has been working on a new DB web app for a few reasons. 1 is to support single sign on, as merging SSO back into the current aging DB web app is just too much of a pain. 2 is to enable us to have a DB API. That DB API will be for our own use and so 3rd party apps have a constant way to query DB information. It’s envisaged that software would be able to ask for the DB data in a more structured way so an app could ask for a list of associations and get what is shown on the SOTA home website and repeatedly query for the regions and summits in those associations rather than just grab a file which only gets larger month by month. We may also offer an update call so apps can say when they last synced the summits list and only get the deltas. All of those need the API which is now in beta testing.
We don’t want to break backwards compatibility so even though there will be a new API and new app, the old ways will continue to run and be supported for some time to allow everyone a chance to update and change.
It would be of some assistance if you added the DXCC entity reference to the Association’s list then made that list available for external download as a csv file.
This could then be used to replace the conversion table that some developers need to maintain without breaking anything in the SOTA summit list!
Please dont remove the facility of downloading the complete summit list because SOTA operators without an internet connection would be unable to lookup summit data from software like Log4OM if it was purely an on line lookup.
Refining the list to just those applicable to the DXCC entity being worked is the reason we require the DXCC reference.
So if I activate a summit on the border of OE and DL that’s an OE/XX summit, but I’m on the DL side of the border, which DXCC does Log4OM say I’m in? Because I’m not in the DXCC that the OE association carries. You work that out by the callsign I used (DL/VK3ARR/P), not the SOTA reference (OE/XX-999).
Anyway, you give me code in a language I’m going to care about, that handles the corner (literally in the tripoint sense) cases, I’ll see if I can API it. Otherwise, it’s way down on my priority list (behind SSO, new sotadata, new assocation surveying, helping Jon with SW3/SSO integration, helping Barry with award generation, activating SOTA myself occasionally, and those two people that run around calling me “Dad”, though I’ve long forgotten their names - Main Child? Spare Child? Something like that, anyway)