PROGRAMMERS! Software and databases...

[Johntodd]

I would make changes to use a standard format for my base format in storing recipes and ingredients so long as the standard format supported all of the elements that I currently track (weight, inventory, cost, etc).

I have your program now, too. I love it, too!

Your individual recipe save files track all that? I must be misunderstanding; why track these things for an individual recipe file?

 

[AttyPops]

I would think that's actually not part of the recipe-proper. It's other files in the application (inventory file and items file, for example).

The real trick in all this....if you have that level of application detail...is mapping imported recipe items to item-file items. There's probably no industry-standard-code for the items. Maybe UPC code? But then a lot of what I read above was just textual description...e.g. "1% flavor x"

 

[Johntodd]

Yeah, it's mostly noun names on the flavors.

But the software, upon import, could "best guess" a match or could defer to the user. That's something for the software guys, though.

 

[HotRod19579]

I have your program now, too. I love it, too!

Your individual recipe save files track all that? I must be misunderstanding; why track these things for an individual recipe file?

I don't save your recipes in individual files. Ingredients along with all recipes using those ingredients are stored in a single XML document. I had considered making these individual files (separate recipe files, one ingredients file) but I chose not to because of the potential issues that could arise. If the files would become out of sync with each other you could have a recipe pointing to ingredient information that no longer exists. The advantage of this structure is that you can update an ingredient and the update to the ingredient is immediately reflected in all recipes that reference the ingredient. For example, rename one of your ingredients and then look at the recipes that reference the ingredient, the name change is reflected in the recipe.

 

[Johntodd]

HotRod;
I like the error handling in that approach.

But what I'm looking for is a way to standardize single or multiple recipe files in such a way as to promote sharing of recipes. If all the software(s) can import the same file(s) and parse them properly, then we've got our standard.

 

[Demiurgous]

If all the software(s) can import the same file(s) and parse them properly, then we've got our standard.

I still think the easiest method is an online DB of recipes. You can then export in a selected format that for a given program to import - or just reference the recipe online when mixing.

 

[Johntodd]

I like the online database idea; but if the format isn't standard, then there's no guarantee that people can import them.

That's what I aim to eliminate.

 

[BostonSean]

JSON is used pretty much everywhere now and there are spectacular libraries for it for Python (my personal fav) and every other current programming language out there but it's more of an API thing really. A way for web apps to toss information back and forth. XML is a solid standard that is more document oriented. Either way, this noble task would require more than a few Open Source programmers getting together. As already stated, the biggest problem is that everyone wants to use Their Thing when writing something. I've been using Open Source only since 1999 and the same problem exists there. No consistency!