Overall Goals for the package ais

[zacsketches]

Overall Goals for the package ais

[zacsketches]

Some of the first steps toward this library might come from the

type aisRecord []string

implemented for the geo utility. This type wraps the return value of a csv.NewReader and adds a few methods helpful for dealing with AIS csv files. Function signatures implemented in geo are:

// contains provides a nice syntax record.contains("LAT") to ensure
// an aisRecord contains a value.  Returns the index and ok.
func (r aisRecord) contains(field string) (i int, ok bool) {
	for i, s := range r {
		if s == field {
			return i, true
		}
	}
	return 0, false
}

// parseFloat wraps strconv.ParseFloat with a method to return a
// float64 from the index value of a field in the AIS record.
// Useful for getting a LAT, LON, SOG or other numeric values
// from an aisRecord.
func (r aisRecord) parseFloat(index int) (float64, error) {
	s, err := strconv.ParseFloat(r[index], 64)
	if err != nil {
		return 0, err
	}
	return s, nil
}

[zacsketches]

A simple early decision about the library should be its name. The name go-ais is already in the godoc claimed names so I am thinking aisutil or simply ais under a different import path than Paul T's version of the similar name.

[zacsketches]

Initial test coverage for the ais package in commit e4c3f868af2f65bf029b4f7721b1281e110f6b53.

As stated in the commit message, this is just the start. This is in no way adequate coverage for the existing package and far from the eventually test driven development desired for future features of the package.

[zacsketches]

Commit f66c944c60e08671ab2853f1fbe7373b168066c6 subtantially added to the package api that now includes the following capabilities:

const TimeLayout = `2006-01-02T15:04:05`
type Definition
type Headers
    func (h Headers) Contains(field string) (i int, ok bool)
    func (h Headers) String() string
    func (h Headers) Valid() bool
type PairHash
    func Hash64(a1, a2 Record, h Headers) (PairHash, error)
type Record
    func (r Record) Parse(h Headers) (Report, error)
    func (r Record) ParseFloat(index int) (float64, error)
    func (r Record) ParseInt(index int) (int64, error)
    func (r Record) ParseTime(index int) (time.Time, error)
type RecordSet
    func NewRecordSet(filename string) (*RecordSet, error)
    func (rs *RecordSet) Headers() Headers
    func (rs *RecordSet) Name() string
    func (rs *RecordSet) SetDictionary(blob []byte) error
type Report
    func (rep Report) HashData() []interface{}

Capabilities that may come next are

type Reader
   func NewReader(rs RecordSet) (*Reader, error)
   func (r Reader) Read() (Record, error)
   func (r Reader) Report() (Report, error)

[zacsketches]

After opening up the repo for the community in mid-December 2019 it makes sense to let future direction for the package be driven by the community. So I am closing this issue and will look at a new issue of similar purpose once we have some experience reports.