[Xastir-dev] Multiline protocol and leading-space stripping in object comments

[Tom Russo]

I have been experimenting with the multiline protocol (the one that 
wx watch boxes use).  My desire is to be able to use objects with this
type of comment to transmit things like uncertainty ellipses around computed
DF solutions.  It could also be used to transmit CAD objects with small numbers
of vertices (as has been requested multiple times in the last month or so 
on the user list).

In order to have the maximum number of points available, I want to create 
these objects with no text other than the multiline string in the comment
section.  Unfortunately, xastir looks for " }" as the starting delimiter of
multiline data, and strips leading spaces out of object comments.

What this means is that upon creation of an object (say with comment string
" }a0<NxPuRlS^TNS>R0P'N$L'J0I>HNI^JlLu{DFtst", which is a 16 point 
approximation of an ellipse of semimajor axis .096 degrees and semiminor axis 
.014 degrees), the object appears just fine, but after the initial display
the object comment is stored without the leading space, and from then on xastir
thinks the object has no multiline data --- the ellipse disappears upon the
first retransmission of the object.

This issue only shows up for multiline objects that have no leading text, not
for those that are put out by wxsvr.net --- i.e. those that are trying to
pack the maximum number of vertices into the comment.

I would like to remove the leading space stripping, since the spec seems not
to require that comments have no leading spaces.   The multiline protocol
document (which appears to be down today, but can be read in the google
cached version) does say they always use " }" as the starting delimiter,
so my other idea for fixing this (just looking for "}") won't work.

Can anyone convince me that removing the leading-space stripping from 
comments storage (db.c's "add_comment" routine) is an unacceptable
change?

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
"And, isn't sanity really just a one-trick pony anyway? I mean all you get is
 one trick, rational thinking, but when you're good and crazy, oooh, oooh,
 oooh, the sky is the limit!"  --- The Tick