Re Updated POI Loader to V 2.6.0

I've never had problems with the version I'm running now, and as the saying goes "if it ain't broke.." and it isn't.

Like it or not, Garmin DOES set the rules for THEIR software. If they change back to NOT recognizing commas inside quotes as delimiters for practical reasons, then so much the better, but as I found out (regarding another piece of software) a CSV 'standard' does NOT have to recognize a comma in quotes as a 'special' character rather than a delimiter/field separator.

From the wiki definition previously posted (emphasis added by me):
"Implementations of CSV can often handle field values with embedded line breaks or separator characters by using quotation marks or escape sequences"

Otherwise, the CSV 'standard' quite literally means that data segments are separated by commas. For example: the GPSBabel Garmin POI database (garmin_poi) format breaks the data at commas regardless of quote or other escape characters, and the developers consider that to be correct operation.

Time will tell if they change back, but it sounds to me like Garmin have changed to allow 'escaped commas' only in the 4th field.

As much as I hate to subject myself to the wrath of the CSV-only enthusiasts, I'm compelled to mention that this kind of thing is exactly why I think GPX is the better format. It's a very precisely defined format standard by design, rather than an evolutionary 'standard' like CSV.

Worked great for me

Nice!

Because most of my custom poi are CSV files I will stay with Loader ver. 2.5.4. I have way too many poi's to convert them. I have only experienced one error message with ver 2.5.4 in the past. I think it was the Godfather's file. I'm pretty sure it didn't have anything to do with ",". I'm not a poi maker but it looked like the column name was on the first line in the excel file. (maybe this is for another thread) If Garmin changes their formating back to the previous ver standards I'll upgrade at that point.

Poi Loader 2.6.0 works fine for me.

I think one thing 2.6.0 will accomplish is putting a little standardization into the information in each field for those that only want to deal with CSV files. As new users will have to dig a little to get 2.5.4, the only recourse for a maintainer is to update their file so it is compatible with the new version of POI Loader.

I understand that the Garmin can set the standards as it pleases. But on the otherhand, it always wants feedback and opinions on how it can improve. What this new update means, is that the current POI files as far as Garmin is concerned doesn't meet the new standards it has set. The outcome from all of this will require us to update our files on this site so the newer versions can read.

As you may know, I do not make POI files myself, but I am totally shocked for you by this comma issue.

I really think that the comma not supported in quoted fields is a bug. A company should follow established standards and not set standards especially if they were supporting it previously. This is a very bad mistake. Backward compatibility is essential for a business.

I am sure Garmin knows it by now. Either they will issue a new release, or they will assume their customers will continue using the previous version since it is available.

My own 2 cents!

As GaryA pointed out. The wording of the Standard is that an implementer - Garmin in this case - MAY treat embedded commas as special characters. Just because they always have in the past doesn't mean they have to now. That's just one of the issues with standards, you have to be very careful with the wording over what is permitted and what is required. The quoted Wikipedia article stated treating commas within a quoted field as special characters is permissive.

As Garmin does treat embedded commas in the description field (that's the 4th column) as special characters you can argue they are not consistent in how they handle special characters. But then this is getting pretty deep into how the wording of a standard can conflict with how a programmer chooses to interpret a requirement.

Garmin indeed improved cosmetics and some functionalities with the new update, but did they ultimately change something that really made the problem worse? This is the issue here.

I wrote to Garmin and published what they said on this website.But I will tell you the feeling I got is they don't care

If they don't care about what their customers want, they're already on their way out!

I would think cooler hands are in charge of the company. At least, I hope so.

Fred

Hi mdh31951,

I am not really surprised. This is why I posted "or they will assume their customers will continue using the previous version since it is available"...

It took them so long to just publish this version (which is not a huge improvement...), that it clearly states they are not interested in developping software, but GPS. With limited resources, you have to concentrate on the important. It may have been done by a summer (or winter) students for all we know. Personally, I think they used a different CSV parser to fix one of the issues and they found out after publishing that they lost the ability to support commas in quoted fields. It is a so dumb move that it can only be a mistake.

I have been in the software business for long enough to know you never make the past incompatible with your future without getting bitten afterward. If we are lucky, the next release in 12 months may fix this problem.

here is the format on the garmin site
http://www8.garmin.com/products/poiloader/creating_custom_po...
------------------------------------------------
The following are examples of Custom POIs in the proper format:

-94.79731,38.81099,Ridgeview@25

-94.74240,38.81952,Heritage Park,Perfect site for a picnic

-94.76416,38.81227,Garmin,"1200 E. 151st Street

Olathe,KS 66062
913/397.8300"
------------------------------------------------

don't see any commas in the name field, just the standard one in the address field.

I've said this for a while, but if you're unhappy with Garmin then speak with your wallet. STOP buying Garmin. That's the only thing that will make Garmin change.

I am running 2.5.4.0 version and when I tell POILoader to check for Software updates it says "There are no software updates available for POILoader".

Maybe Garmin has taken the update to 2.6.0 down until they fix the issue.

Still showing at http://www8.garmin.com/software/POILoaderforWindows_260.exe for download.

I agree with turboccc that the way the latest version parses "," as an error is a bug. I am sticking with version 2.5.4.0

quite a bit faster. No (cross my fingers) problems as yet..I can only hope and pray...

Thanks for the heads up and the info!

I suspect it was a loophole that poi file builders exploited and Garmin has shut it down. In any event it isn't difficult to fix.

Why play into Garmin's hands. Stick with the one that works.

If they really wanted to do something they would make the program so that you could configure file setups so that everytime you had a new POI file you didn't have to step through every file each and every time. It's not faster if it fails to load the files.

It just goes to show you, new is not necessarily better. An old adage, but still true.

I am having problem with loading my wav files.

I didnt have that issue with previous version.

http://img543.imageshack.us/img543/7372/errorxm.jpg

http://img267.imageshack.us/img267/4526/error1y.jpg

Someone posted that when they downloaded 2.60 is was placed on the computer in a different location then 2.54.They had to add the sox.exe to the new location.

Never got answer back from Garmin on the problem.Just sent another one with copy of the first one asking about delay.

I d/l'ed 2.6.0 version and tried but it would only load half of my GPX files before quitting. Tried both "express" and "manual" with no success.

Re-installed 2.5.4 and all of the files load properly on my 680.

That phrase has always scared me to death, no matter what the product is.

I agree with turboCC that the change in the treatment of commas is likely a bug because, as he said, one always should strive to have your software backward compatible.

However, it does seem that the new feature of being able name the output file is a nice feature.

We need to wait and see what happens. there may have been a good reason why the change was made.

The problem is that the software parses the text differently. I had some commas in addresses that passed with the old version (2.5.4), but it hiccups with the new version. Says "Problem with line 852" but its the comma in the previous line that throws it out of sync. I guess it's getting plain text, when it's expecting a number in the first position on line 852. That means it's reading it in as one long string - just like it's a Binary file. Not truly parsing it line by line.

My humble guess, anyway.

Maybe the Mac guys can let us PC guys know if their update works better

POI Loader for Mac, Ver. 2.2.0, as of Jan 25, 2011

My problem was with commas in the 3rd column as well as the 4th column.

BTW: It's been snowing in Williamsburg since 7:30 PM. Not really sticking though.

Finally got answer from Garmin on second email.Don't sound like they will fix the problem to me.

Thank you for contacting Garmin International.

I am sorry your email somehow got overlooked and I would be happy to
assist you with your POI Loader. Usually this is caused because of the
formatting of the files being used. If you are using a "csv" file you
cannot have commas in the description fields. Also you can not have too
many characters in the description. The older versions would allow these
issues because they did a poor job determining if all lines in the file
are valid. To solve this issue, please remove any commas in the
descriptions and limit the length of your description.

If this is not an option, please try the previous version as some others
have done. Here is a link to download the version 2.54:

http://www.gawisp.com/perry/POILoaderforWindows_254.exe

Please let us know if you have any other issues or concerns.

With Best Regards,

David Mo.
Software Support Specialist
2nd Shift Software Team
Garmin International
913-397-8200
800-800-1020
913-440-8280 (fax) Att: David Mo., Associate #6387

Based on Garmin's response, it appears that Miss POI has to make some tough decisions.

Either (1) all existing csv files need to be reviewed and fixed or (2) this site needs to adopt the gpx format as the default format (since it appears that gpx files load properly even with commas in the description field).

It's unrealistic to expect all members to use an older version of POI Loader. So if nothing is done about this situation I can forsee new members logging complaints every day about csv files not loading properly.

I was setting here thinking the same thing GadgetGuy2008 .Trying to decide to just go ahead and change over to 2.60 and fix any files that I may have with problems.

has anyone had problems with any other characters in the "name" file like '-', '/' etc???

I reported this to Garmin Support and they Referred me to a page on their site. Of the examples on that page only one of three POI would load.

http://www8.garmin.com/products/poiloader/creating_custom_po...

Same response I got just from a different associate.

I agree it is difficult to know which version users will have.

Why not just add a note beside each download section to indicate files are compatible with POI Loader v2.5.x ?

It seems to me that commas help in reading fields with multiple information. Also, EPE uses those commas to split/extract some address fields. It is not mandatory, but it helps to split address information into separate fields. Removing all commas is a lot of work. If Garmin fixes the issue next year, this would have been done for nothing.

Well I guess I know what I will be doing over the next few weeks.

Time to get up to speed and start fixing files. I am going to see if there is an easy program that JM can build to locate these now broken files.

I am going to go ahead and start a new thread so that we have a place to link to the files that don't work anymore.

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/32071

Miss POI

Loader 2.6.0 does not work using only GPX files - at least on my system. Tried it yesterday and had to go back to 2.5.4

Thanks for the info!!

Weeks? Why not finish tomorrow? LOL! If you have a list of files with URL (direct computer access would be better!), it is easy to scan all the CSV files to detect commas inside a column. I could make a program to help you with this.

If you want to do this manually, just open the file in Excel and make a global replace from "," to something else. I would avoid a space and use maybe ";" which is a normal separator.

Let me know.

Hey Charlie,

Problem solved on my both Nuvi.

Thanks for helping!

You really deserve the COY award. I never doubt it.

I will start by modifying POI Factory's "Garmin CSV" download program to automatically strip out the commas as the file is being downloaded from the site.

If this test works well, I might use similar code to go ahead and directy fix the original files (or at least show a warning on the check for errors page).

Also, I see the note from Garmin mentions there is a maximum size for the description field. I can automatically truncate longer fields during download at the same time commas are stripped.

Does anyone know the maximum field sizes allowed by the new version of POI Loader?

It seems like the csv format is going to impose a lot of limitations, so I'm curious why we don't make gpx the default format on this site?

If folks need a csv file for their particular gps device there are numerous free converter programs available.

I respectfully disagree with this. The maintainers should be able to decide which format works best for them to create and manage the files.

That's a longer term type of change. Right now I'm going to put in a quick fix. Once we're back to a stable spot, we can look at what makes sense for the long term.

I just sent another email to Garmin for answer to how many characters you can have in the description.I know a lot of files may have overdone the description field.I have changed several I downloaded.Because the arrival notice is based on what is in Column c and if to long it gets cut off.Some file don't even have it.Making it very hard when you use the all tab for custom pois.You have no idea what it is when it pulls up the ones closest to you.