First, I got to say that I am very appreciative of the fact that @blantonl added the support for these downloads to more than just the P25 systems.
But, there is a bug, and it gives those downloads some problems - non valid characters are in the talkgroup names, and when you download the talkgroup file and append it to the running talkgroup file, DSDPlus will throw out pages of errors, requiring manual editing to clean them up.
First, is some talkgroups have quotation marks in their description, which DSDPlus will think is the end of the entry, and say that there is invalid data at the end of the line. So for instance if I look at the US Air Force System:
There are several instances of this, like:
Which when generated into a DSDPlus download looks like:
The second variant is a non-standard character being embedded in the name - it may not show on the web interface, but will show up in the DSDPlus download. Looking at this system:
The descriptions in RRDB presentation look normal:
But the problem starts showing up in the download:
You'll notice those pesky little spaces at the end of the description - a simple space won't break DSDPlus, but those are actually what's called a Non-breaking Space or NBSP in web parlance (it's typically a piece of web code that says the words on either side of the space are not to be split between lines and should remain on a single line), and DSDPlus doesn't like them. I use Notepad++ for editing the files, and it highlights the invalid character when I was chasing it.
Since I don't know how the parser for generating these downloads works, I have no idea if this is something that can be fixed in flight, as part of generating the download, or if this is a fix that has to happen to the individual entries on each system. I also doubt that these two systems are the only ones with these issues.
But, there is a bug, and it gives those downloads some problems - non valid characters are in the talkgroup names, and when you download the talkgroup file and append it to the running talkgroup file, DSDPlus will throw out pages of errors, requiring manual editing to clean them up.
First, is some talkgroups have quotation marks in their description, which DSDPlus will think is the end of the entry, and say that there is invalid data at the end of the line. So for instance if I look at the US Air Force System:
United States Air Force (157) Trunking System, Various, Multi-State
United States Air Force (157) Trunking System Profile
www.radioreference.com
There are several instances of this, like:
Which when generated into a DSDPlus download looks like:
P25,BEE00.157,48021,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[PSFB Sec 1] Security Police "Control""The second variant is a non-standard character being embedded in the name - it may not show on the web interface, but will show up in the DSDPlus download. Looking at this system:
The descriptions in RRDB presentation look normal:
But the problem starts showing up in the download:
P25,BEE00.9C5,35723,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS Sec] Security "
P25,BEE00.9C5,35724,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS SecTac2] Security Tac 2 "
P25,BEE00.9C5,35725,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS BldgOps] Building Operations "
P25,BEE00.9C5,35726,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS Group Tour] Group Tours "
P25,BEE00.9C5,35727,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS Fire Sys Mx] Fire System Maintenance"
P25,BEE00.9C5,35729,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS Bld MX] Building Maintenance "
P25,BEE00.9C5,35736,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS Ops] Operations "
P25,BEE00.9C5,35737,50,Normal,0,0000/00/00 0:00,"[DMNS LifeSafety] Life Safety "You'll notice those pesky little spaces at the end of the description - a simple space won't break DSDPlus, but those are actually what's called a Non-breaking Space or NBSP in web parlance (it's typically a piece of web code that says the words on either side of the space are not to be split between lines and should remain on a single line), and DSDPlus doesn't like them. I use Notepad++ for editing the files, and it highlights the invalid character when I was chasing it.
Since I don't know how the parser for generating these downloads works, I have no idea if this is something that can be fixed in flight, as part of generating the download, or if this is a fix that has to happen to the individual entries on each system. I also doubt that these two systems are the only ones with these issues.
