[aprssig] spaces in object names

[Pete Loveall AE5PL Lists]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Patrick
> Sent: Wednesday, August 12, 2009 8:02 PM
> 
> That said, around the same effect can be duplicated by either an
> underscore or a period filling in the spaces as both do denote visible
> characters...

True for display but... the spec does not limit the "printable ASCII characters" which means a name of !@#$%^&*( (9 characters) is a legal Object name according to the spec.  I doubt this was the "intent" of the APRS WG but nonetheless that means ...,,,__- is also a "legal" Object name.  This severely limits what you might want to use to substitute in the "display" of the name.  For database purposes (whether online or in an application), if it is decided as I think most agree that trailing spaces may be ignored and therefore trimmed when displayed or stored, you still don't want to alter the base content between the first and last non-space characters even if that content includes spaces between those characters.

Something to think about.  I have seen a lot of "strange" Object names over the years but, according to the spec, they have all been "legal".  The danger is to create some new alteration of the specification that will not be seen by all and cause even further confusion and ambiguity.  Modifying an Object name by removing multiple embedded spaces, IMO, is just that kind of "new alteration".

73,

Pete Loveall AE5PL
pete at ae5pl dot net