[Therion] Nesting surveys

[Stacho Mudrak]

> I think I understand that using the global dataset would work, however, this
> means that everything has to be tided into the global dataset from the
> start. For various reasons this is not going to be possible (well not in the
> near future.) I was also hoping to be able to send distinct sections out,
> without sending the whole dataset out, eg just send the folder darkside out
> and someone would be able to edit it. Also I like to try to have data as
> simple to change as possible. For example when a cave has been misnamed I
> could just change a couple of references and that would be it, I am thinking
> of situations of when a small cave is linked to a large system and then is
> just an area of that system. If the full global reference is used in the th2
> files this would not be possible.

I am not sure, whether we have understood. From my point of view, everything you
described would work - without needs of knowing this global dataset structure.
Assuming the most simple scenario:

You have a centerline in survex. There is only one survey "entrance" and
stations are named from 0 to 10. In therion, your dataset (entrance.th) will be
like:

import entrance.3d -surveys use

survey entrance
  input entrance.th2
endsurvey

... assuming in entrance.th2 stations are without any prefix - named just
0,1,..,10.

Now you have two such directories: "entrance" and "continuation" for example. In
survex, you have a global file named "cave.3d" where stations from entrance
dataset look like cave.entrance.1 and from second dataset cave.continuation.1
and cave.3d in in the upper level directory.

Now the corresponding cave.th file in this directory will be like:

import cave.3d -surveys use

survey cave
  input entrance/entrance.th
  input continuation/continuation.th
endsurvey

And that's all. You are able to work on single peace without knowing global
datastructure. You may send only directory continuation to somebody without any
files from top level directory and it will work. He may edit it, send it back
to you and it will work also. If he will rename this survey, you just change
references in cave.th and that's all. I do not see any of problems
you have described.

> Also if I understand you correctly, I would have to edit every station name
> in all the th2 file.

Certainly not. It looks I missed something. I was wondering, why you use such a
long station names... I need to check your source files once more, may be your
problem is different.

> >From a users point of view, a possible solution is to use some sort of
> prefix name - endprefix that would use the survex naming structure ie add
> name.* to all the stations.

Scrap already has this possibility via -station-names option. You may add
prefixes or suffixes if you like.

OK, I will check your files more in the detail, may be I will understand. But
today, thinking is a little bit difficult for me - I drunk something last night
and I slept only 3 hours... Probably when I will wake up tomorrow, everything
will be clear.

S.