+Chrysalides Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 Field notes look like it is in a very simple format. An example: GC123,2010-01-31T17:45Z,Found it,"Comments" GC123 is obviously the cache's GC code. The date / time is in Zulu time (UT / GMT) with one small caveat : there is a bug so that it is converted twice. The details is in a long post somewhere, but what it means is that time works very strangely. If you want the date to be correct and you're in Pacific time zone, your finds should be after 16:00Z. However, creating a simple ASCII file will not work. I found out that the file generated by the Garmin is in UTF16, Little Endian. The first 2 bytes of the file is FF FE. The 2 bytes after that is "GC", encoded as 47 00 43 00. Each character is stored as 16 bits with the least significant byte first. After I created the file in that format, everything worked fine. So I thought I'd share my findings here and hope someone finds it useful. If you have an idea of how field notes can be used to make your life easier, do share it here. I generate a list of geocaches my daughter needs to log as field notes and upload it to her account. That way she can work through them at her leisure, without wondering what are the GC code and date of find. Quote Link to comment
+GeePa Posted February 7, 2010 Share Posted February 7, 2010 Thanks for the information. I have an caching application for my Blackberry that generates the file so I have not looked into this before. I have tried to create a file by hand before and it would not work and I didn't know why. With the help from your discovery, I found that if I use Notepad++ (best free file editor there is IMHO) and set the encoding to UCS-2 Little Endian then the file works! Thanks again for the information. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted February 8, 2010 Author Share Posted February 8, 2010 I found that if I use Notepad++ (best free file editor there is IMHO) and set the encoding to UCS-2 Little Endian then the file works! Thanks for that - I've been using other editors, but free is very good Quote Link to comment
tiiiim Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 (edited) Long story short - I like to make up my own things and have 'made' a sort of cache-management app for my netbook. This thread inspired me to try and create my own field notes from the database, so that when I reported a cache as 'found' or DNF I could create a fieldnote with my comments and just upload that to the GC site. Two things I found out: The last comma-separated value in the text file is the comments - in the example above this is enclosed by speech marks ("..."). It IS possible to upload a fieldnote which does not enclose the string with speech marks, but then the comment better not have any commas in it! (Come to think of it, what happens when there's a speech mark in the comment? Perhaps it's gotta be escaped - I'll try it....) Secondly, and more importantly - the PHP function to convert the string into that required by the GC site is: mb_convert_encoding($string, "UCS-2LE") Hopefully this should help those looking for similar functions in other languages! Thanks to the two previous posters for helping me determine that I was looking for "UCS-2LE" as the encoding format! Edited February 12, 2010 by tiiiim Quote Link to comment
+DavidMac Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 (edited) I've been editing the file by hand to insert the time into my log or sometimes to write a brief sentence or two before uploading. This saves me from having to paste in the info later when composing my log on the site. Messing around with the file, I found that you can submit other log types too... for example if you log an event as "found" on your GPS, when composing your log on the site you need to select the "attended" log type (since you can't post a Found It to an event). Sure it's quicker to just select Attended from the menu, but there are other possibilities too. If you enter a log type into your field notes which a particular cache type can't accept, when you compose your log the dropdown box reverts to - select one - GCGQ5G,2010-02-09T17:39Z,Needs Archived,"" GC1Z7DN,2010-02-09T18:24Z,Attended,"" GC1Z7DN,2010-02-09T28:44Z,Published,"" (The "publish" log type didn't work though... I thought it was at least worth a try ) Edited February 12, 2010 by DavidMac Quote Link to comment
+Moose Mob Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 I've been editing the file by hand to insert the time into my log or sometimes to write a brief sentence or two before uploading. This saves me from having to paste in the info later when composing my log on the site. Messing around with the file, I found that you can submit other log types too... for example if you log an event as "found" on your GPS, when composing your log on the site you need to select the "attended" log type (since you can't post a Found It to an event). Sure it's quicker to just select Attended from the menu, but there are other possibilities too. If you enter a log type into your field notes which a particular cache type can't accept, when you compose your log the dropdown box reverts to - select one - GCGQ5G,2010-02-09T17:39Z,Needs Archived,"" GC1Z7DN,2010-02-09T18:24Z,Attended,"" GC1Z7DN,2010-02-09T28:44Z,Published,"" (The "publish" log type didn't work though... I thought it was at least worth a try ) Let me know how that "Published" log type works for you. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 (The "publish" log type didn't work though... I thought it was at least worth a try ) That's hilarious! Thanks for the info on the other log types. Useful to know. Quote Link to comment
+benh57 Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 The strict UTF requirements on this file make editing it a huge pain. It would be awesome if the site accepted the file in any encoding, or just simple ascii text. I've requested this of Groundspeak before, but no word. Quote Link to comment
+Reidmylips Posted March 18, 2010 Share Posted March 18, 2010 Field notes look like it is in a very simple format. An example: GC123,2010-01-31T17:45Z,Found it,"Comments" GC123 is obviously the cache's GC code. The date / time is in Zulu time (UT / GMT) with one small caveat : there is a bug so that it is converted twice. The details is in a long post somewhere, but what it means is that time works very strangely. If you want the date to be correct and you're in Pacific time zone, your finds should be after 16:00Z. However, creating a simple ASCII file will not work. I found out that the file generated by the Garmin is in UTF16, Little Endian. The first 2 bytes of the file is FF FE. The 2 bytes after that is "GC", encoded as 47 00 43 00. Each character is stored as 16 bits with the least significant byte first. After I created the file in that format, everything worked fine. So I thought I'd share my findings here and hope someone finds it useful. If you have an idea of how field notes can be used to make your life easier, do share it here. I generate a list of geocaches my daughter needs to log as field notes and upload it to her account. That way she can work through them at her leisure, without wondering what are the GC code and date of find. [/quote Is anyone able to explain this in simple terms that someone only a bit computer literate can understand. I edited my visit file and since then I cannot upload my field notes. Quote Link to comment
+Chrysalides Posted March 18, 2010 Author Share Posted March 18, 2010 Is anyone able to explain this in simple terms that someone only a bit computer literate can understand. I edited my visit file and since then I cannot upload my field notes. I can explain it in simpler terms, but I don't think you're really interested and just want it to work (that "insight" comes from trying to explain things to my wife - if I'm wrong, let me know, and I'll post something with more background). If you're using Windows, download Notepad++ (free, available from http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/download.php ). You want to download the binary installer. When editing, select menu "Encoding", choose "Encode in UCS-2 Little Endian". If you're on a Mac, there should be Mac editors that can do that as well. Also make sure that the fields are exactly as described. As noted: GC123,2010-01-31T17:45Z,Found it,"Comments" So, no space before / after the commas, GC in uppercase, time exactly in that format (2 digit months, 2 digit days, 24 hour time, Z to indicate that the time is UTC / GMT. Found it spelled exactly and in that case (not "Found It" - that may not work). If no comments are present, the last field should be two empty double quotes (i.e. "") Quote Link to comment
+ShotgunPR Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 Is there a way to log trackables (e.g. Visit, Dropped off, etc.) using field notes? Quote Link to comment
7rxc Posted May 15, 2011 Share Posted May 15, 2011 I'm not able to use this right now, but... one question comes to mind. Is there a limit on the max length (characters) on the Comment field or any other for that matter? Just wondering, since I haven't / can't use field notes, at least GPS generated ones. Doug 7rxc Quote Link to comment
+LEGO Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 I'm glad that I came across this topic, because it helped me to solve a problem that I have been mulling over for quite some time. I have been wanting to bring my daughter's account up to date with the cache finds that she found with me, but I had never entered any finds for her for the past three years. I loaded "My Finds" into GSAK and exported a CSV file with just the GC code, date found, and cache name. I opened the CSV file in Excel and changed the date format form MM/DD/YYYY to YYYY-MM-DD. I deleted the lines for caches that she did not find, then I opened the file in TextPad (a fantastic text editor). I recorded a macro in TextPad to add the rest of the date field and to add a log comment. I uploaded the file to her field notes, then was able to create a log entry with two clicks on each field note. It took a while, with over 250 notes, but it was much easier than trying to create a log from scratch for each of her finds. Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 (edited) Field notes look like it is in a very simple format. An example: GC123,2010-01-31T17:45Z,Found it,"Comments" ... However, creating a simple ASCII file will not work. I found out that the file generated by the Garmin is in UTF16, Little Endian. The first 2 bytes of the file is FF FE. The 2 bytes after that is "GC", encoded as 47 00 43 00. Each character is stored as 16 bits with the least significant byte first. Guess what? This is all so much easier now. Files no longer need to be in UTF format. As of a few site updates ago, they can now be straight ASCII. Yay! I loaded "My Finds" into GSAK and exported a CSV file with just the GC code, date found, and cache name. I opened the CSV file in Excel and changed the date format form MM/DD/YYYY to YYYY-MM-DD. ... then I opened the file in TextPad (a fantastic text editor)... to add the rest of the date field and to add a log comment. The file format is pretty flexible. It's just a CSV file. "GC1HQA5",2009-12-11T13:05Z,"Found it","blah blah" "GC1845R",2009-12-11T13:06Z,"Didn't find it","yadda yadda" Note the quote marks around the GC Code and log type. This is the output of Open Office's CSV export. It will upload just fine to the website. I suspect Excel's CSV export will work as well. Is there a limit on the max length (characters) on the Comment field or any other for that matter? Just wondering, since I haven't / can't use field notes, at least GPS generated ones. I haven't tried pushing the limits, but 200 characters seems to work well. My bet is it will work up to the maximum log size (2000 chars?). Go ahead and mock up a file in Excel or Open Office and let us know what you find out Edited May 18, 2011 by Lil Devil Quote Link to comment
+fizzymagic Posted May 18, 2011 Share Posted May 18, 2011 Guess what? This is all so much easier now. Files no longer need to be in UTF format. As of a few site updates ago, they can now be straight ASCII. Yay! That is great news. I've been using Notepad++ only for those files because it was the only editor that would do UTF-16 properly. I've also written a bunch of Python code to fix the time zone problem, among other things. It does UTF-16 nicely, but it will be easier if I can convert it to ASCII. Minor rant: determining the time zone for coordinates is trivial. Why doesn't Groundspeak convert the times in field notes from UTC to local time when you upload them? Quote Link to comment
7rxc Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 Guess what? This is all so much easier now. Files no longer need to be in UTF format. As of a few site updates ago, they can now be straight ASCII. Yay! [snip!] The file format is pretty flexible. It's just a CSV file. "GC1HQA5",2009-12-11T13:05Z,"Found it","blah blah" "GC1845R",2009-12-11T13:06Z,"Didn't find it","yadda yadda" Note the quote marks around the GC Code and log type. This is the output of Open Office's CSV export. It will upload just fine to the website. I suspect Excel's CSV export will work as well. Is there a limit on the max length (characters) on the Comment field or any other for that matter? Just wondering, since I haven't / can't use field notes, at least GPS generated ones. I haven't tried pushing the limits, but 200 characters seems to work well. My bet is it will work up to the maximum log size (2000 chars?). Go ahead and mock up a file in Excel or Open Office and let us know what you find out Thanks for the extra information... As I said, I'm looking at it but don't think I can use it right now. I was guessing 256 characters or multiples similar to Excel cells... Are field notes in the realm of Premium Members? I don't remember ever seeing a place for them for us Basics, but that will change for me soon... just a few more bills to pay. Do you know what it takes to create a POI file for Garmin? Doug 7rxc Quote Link to comment
+Lil Devil Posted May 19, 2011 Share Posted May 19, 2011 Are field notes in the realm of Premium Members? I just logged in with my wife's non-PM account and the Field Notes page appears to work fine. Even uploaded a file. I don't remember ever seeing a place for them for us Basics Interesting. I looked around and I couldn't find a link on the site anywhere Quote Link to comment
Krydos Posted April 19, 2012 Share Posted April 19, 2012 (edited) Just wanted to mention that I got this to work in vi/vim. If you have no idea what that or even what unix is just ignore this and continue to use something like notepad+ as suggested above. # vim FieldNotes.txt :set fileencoding=UCS-2LE :set fileencoding (To make sure it shows as UCS-2LE not utf-8, etc) i (To begin insert mode.) <GC code>,<date year-month-day>T<time>Z,<log type>,"<message>" esc (To exit insert mode.) :wq (Save and quit.) Go to http://www.geocaching.com/my/uploadfieldnotes.aspx Select your file and upload. Now that I've read the rest of the thread I see that ascii files are accepted now, but strangely when I didn't have my encoding correct the site didn't accept the upload. Edited April 19, 2012 by Krydos Quote Link to comment
+huberteff Posted August 23, 2018 Share Posted August 23, 2018 I haven't seen conversion via iconv(1) mentioned here, so here we go, for all those Unix/NetBSD/MacOS or even Linux users: % echo GC123 | iconv -f ascii -t UTF-16LE > /tmp/x % hexdump -C /tmp/x 00000000 47 00 43 00 31 00 32 00 33 00 0a 00 |G.C.1.2.3...| 0000000c Quote Link to comment
+fizzymagic Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 For Windows users, Notepad++ can edit the file in UTF-16 mode. Quote Link to comment
+NYPaddleCacher Posted August 24, 2018 Share Posted August 24, 2018 3 hours ago, fizzymagic said: For Windows users, Notepad++ can edit the file in UTF-16 mode. +1 for Notepad++ I no longer use a Windows machine for work but when I did I'd use Notepad++ plus frequently for editing files containing diacritics Quote Link to comment
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