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Date: Sun, 5 Mar 2017 14:18:35 -0500
From: al davis <ad252 AT freeelectron DOT net>
To: geda-user AT delorie DOT com
Subject: Re: [geda-user] [dev][pcb] tEDAx - footprint format spec
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On Sun,  5 Mar 2017 18:34:28 +0100 (CET)
karl AT aspodata DOT se wrote:
> A first thing to do would be to make other parties agree on the first 
> line of the file, so programs have a chance to cheeply identify file 
> format and switch in another parser on the fly.
> 
>  A few first lines:
> gschem: v 20111231 2
> pcb: anything
> verilog-AMS: anything
> tEDAx: tEDAx v1
> kicad,
>  wings: #!WINGS-1.0
>  wrl:  #VRML V2.0 utf8
>  kicad_mod: (module CAP_RAD_5MM (layer F.Cu)
>  kicad_pcb: (kicad_pcb (version 4) (host pcbnew "(2015-05-18 BZR 5668)-product")

On the surface, that seems like a good idea, but I/you/we don't have
control of the various formats, so it might be difficult to convince a
committee of something like that.

Really, what's needed is for any reader to exit quickly and gracefully
if it isn't a match, so the caller can move on to something else.