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Date: Sun, 13 Sep 2015 11:08:01 -0400
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From: DJ Delorie <dj AT delorie DOT com>
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Subject: Re: [geda-user] shortest way towards parsing .pcb files outside pcb
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> Are there really an problems with the current file format that's
> hampering development?

The only real problem with the current file format is that the parser
needs to know about the context, so you can't have "unexpected" fields
in it.  The format depends heavily on what's supported, and it's not
very flexible.  Compare with the pcb-menu.res files, which separate
the file format from the meaning of the data (it's like XML or YAML in
that sense).

But the real issue is that at some point we need to redesign the
internal data representation of layouts to enable more future
development.  At that point we either expand the existing parser
again, or switch to something that won't need expanding again.