Data file format for CB1's on-line city project

The data file format for the on-line city is a simple key-value pair format; each entry is a block of lines of text, with blank lines between the entries. Within each entry, each attribute of the entry is represented as key="value" where the value must be in "double-quote" characters, with any quotes within them escaped using a backslash. (The quote characters will probably eventually become optional for single-line fields.)

The first entry in the file represents the main object, and subsequent entries, the objects alongside it... very much oriented towards roads!

There are several standard keys that are present in many kinds of entry. Here are some of them, to give you the flavour of it; see also the field types page.

name

This names the entry

type

Indicates the type of entry; common values include

• road
• shop
• leisurefacility
• area

For more types, see the feature types page.
Each .attr file is expected to be in a directory whose name is the attribute type of its main object, with the letter s appended, for example, something of type road should be in the directory roads.

description

This is an arbitrary description of the entry, in HTML.

include

This is a special case -- it indicates another data file to include at this point. Its value is an arbitrary URL.

home-page

For organizations with their own pages, this links to their page.

I have a test page for driving a test CGI script (don't rely on these staying around); the page is select.html and the script is whatever you currently get by submitting a request from select.html -- if you have a chance of understanding the script, you should be able to fetch it! The data file I'm using as the main example in developing the script (which does not yet work!) is lensfield-road.attr so if you'd like to make some data files, you could take that as an example to base yours on. (It's not complete, either!)

For more information, see the index to the documentation.