[Gdal-dev] RFC 11: Fast Format Identification

[Ivan Lucena]

Frank,

I realize that we are talking about a different application and different
user-interface. You want to load a FileSectionDialog so it must be fast and
it must show the list at once. I was talking about running the file-browser
in a separate tread so that the UI could be update while the query is been
made. I guess that the fast format identification will be a plus in both
cases. 

Anyway, I always felt that the drivers open method is doing more than it
should, so separating Identify() from Open() is a good refactorying idea. 

You can add RST in your list and I will take care of it.

Regards,

Ivan

-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com] 
Sent: Monday, April 30, 2007 10:04 PM
To: Ivan Lucena
Cc: 'gdal-dev'
Subject: Re: [Gdal-dev] RFC 11: Fast Format Identification

Ivan Lucena wrote:
> A faster identifier would be nice but IMHO I think that you can accomplish
> improvement is performance without the proposed change so that your
> application will take responsibility for that. You can thread the
> user-interface, record search-index like google desktop or/and treat
> especial case in your own driver-manager loop in your app.

Ivan,

I don't see that multi-threading is a great solution to speeding up
identification, and if it is, it should provide even more benefit
once the identify operation is available.

Keeping some sort of search index might work in some contexts, but at
a great cost in complication and there would still be the brutal hit the
first time a big directory on a network drive is accessed.

I quite agree that the identify feature is not *critical* for folks to
build applications with GDAL.  But there is an important client who wants
it to improve their user experience, and I can see it being useful for other
applications, so I'm keen to provide a solution.

Best regards,
-- 
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