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"My Finds" PQ - possible to manually create?


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Hi all,

 

I've been using http://www.mygeocachingprofile.com to build some stats but the file they require can only be the "My Finds" PQ from http://www.geocaching.com i.e. the one that only be generated every 3 days. This is fine as a concept but it's always bugged me a bit that something as basic as the my finds PQ can only be generated every 3 days ... that's for another topic, though.

 

Anyway, http://www.mygeocachingprofile.com says that a manually-generated PQ of your finds won't be the same as the "My Finds" PQ so I've done a bit piece of comparison and they look basically the same apart from the PQ title i.e. your custom named query vs "My Finds" (or whatever the exact wording is).

 

So, here are my questions:

 

1. Is it possible to generate a PQ that is identical to the "My Finds" PQ? At this point I'm assuming not otherwise limiting the built-in one to run a max of every 3 days would be kinda pointless.

2. I've got finds in 3 countries now but PQs only allow for searches up to, I think, 1500km from your home coordinates. Something like that anyway. Is there a way to generate PQ that lists everything, no matter where they are?

 

Apologies if these are silly questions but I'm working on an application for Mac that, if it becomes popular, will need stats more than once every 3 days.

 

Thanks! :)

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If you're asking if you can use a regular PQ in place of the "my finds" PQ for MGP.com (or for any other stats purposes), then the answer is no. The "my finds" PQ is special in that it will return an unlimited number of caches, will also return archived caches, and that it will return only your own logs on those caches (and all of them). It's not possible to get all that with a regular PQ.

 

You can however use an offline database (ala GSAK) to hand-craft a similar GPX file and use that, provided you actually have all the required information.

Edited by dfx
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Thanks for the replies. :)

 

Why do I want to run the My Finds query more than once every 3 days? Because I'm picky and want to update my MGP stats after I've been geocaching.

Other cachers checking my stats each day? Hehe, nope, I'm not that important.

 

And yep, I know what rhetorical means but thought I'd answer anyway, for the sake of clarification. :)

 

Thanks dfx and StarBrand for the explanations - helpful info there.

 

I guess my query re running the PQ every 3 days was partly based on system design (I've managed massive websites for years). I figured that geocaching.com must be massively busy already and that if a system can't handle the potential load, maybe it should have more resources thrown at it (vertical or horizontal expansion) from a systems perspective.

 

Don't get me wrong, geocaching.com is a fantastic site and really well made but Geocaching is increasing exponentially in popularity every day and I think it'd be cool if we could generate our My Finds PQs more often. Imagine if you could only search Google once a day? Ok, that was a shockingly bad comparison, but I think you know what I mean. :)

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Thanks for the replies. :)

 

Why do I want to run the My Finds query more than once every 3 days? Because I'm picky and want to update my MGP stats after I've been geocaching.

Other cachers checking my stats each day? Hehe, nope, I'm not that important.

(Bolding mine)

Egads.... a 182 finds and 1 hide, and you want to run a "My Finds" after each outing?? :blink:

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I guess my query re running the PQ every 3 days was partly based on system design (I've managed massive websites for years). I figured that geocaching.com must be massively busy already and that if a system can't handle the potential load, maybe it should have more resources thrown at it (vertical or horizontal expansion) from a systems perspective.

 

Problem is once you reach a certain load no matter how many resources you throw at it it will not scale any larger due to limitations of the underlying database technology, I read they are working on changing the underlying architecture of the site to allow future growth.

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Thanks for the replies. :)

 

Why do I want to run the My Finds query more than once every 3 days? Because I'm picky and want to update my MGP stats after I've been geocaching.

Other cachers checking my stats each day? Hehe, nope, I'm not that important.

(Bolding mine)

Egads.... a 182 finds and 1 hide, and you want to run a "My Finds" after each outing?? :blink:

 

I expected more replies like this, to be honest. As I said at the bottom of the original post, I'm building an application for Mac that will needs the PQ more than once every 3 days if it becomes popular (I'm hoping it will as it does some stuff no other app offers yet). My 'desire' to run it after I've been geocaching is a selfish thing only and nothing to do with the app.

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You could always add in the newly found caches to the end of the MyFinds PQ .gpx file manualy using a txt editor. Will take a bit of time, but it will work. Use some copy/past-ing to save some time.

 

Ahh now that's more like what I was looking for. That confirms that I can manually insert the XML data at the end of the My Finds PQ (which I haven't tried as the app isn't that far along, yet). Thanks Andronicus. :)

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I guess my query re running the PQ every 3 days was partly based on system design (I've managed massive websites for years). I figured that geocaching.com must be massively busy already and that if a system can't handle the potential load, maybe it should have more resources thrown at it (vertical or horizontal expansion) from a systems perspective.

 

Problem is once you reach a certain load no matter how many resources you throw at it it will not scale any larger due to limitations of the underlying database technology, I read they are working on changing the underlying architecture of the site to allow future growth.

 

Interesting - I wonder what the underlying database technology is? Scaling shouldn't be an issue if the DB engine is an enterprise-scale one, especially since there are plenty of websites that require many 1000x the power of Geocaching.com and they're all handling the throughput OK ... budget and data centre limitations aside, of course. :)

 

Anyway, I'm getting a bit off topic now. Thanks for your input!

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You could always add in the newly found caches to the end of the MyFinds PQ .gpx file manualy using a txt editor. Will take a bit of time, but it will work. Use some copy/past-ing to save some time.

 

Ahh now that's more like what I was looking for. That confirms that I can manually insert the XML data at the end of the My Finds PQ (which I haven't tried as the app isn't that far along, yet). Thanks Andronicus. :)

 

Note that the "my finds" PQ GPX file isn't just a list of caches, it also includes your "found it" logs (and any other logs you may have posted on each cache). MGP.com uses this information to determine the "unique found caches" vs. "total cache finds". In other words, if you're missing your "found it" logs, you may get unexpected results. On the other hand, you may also get unexpected results if the GPX includes any logs that weren't made by you.

Edited by dfx
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You could always add in the newly found caches to the end of the MyFinds PQ .gpx file manualy using a txt editor. Will take a bit of time, but it will work. Use some copy/past-ing to save some time.

 

Ahh now that's more like what I was looking for. That confirms that I can manually insert the XML data at the end of the My Finds PQ (which I haven't tried as the app isn't that far along, yet). Thanks Andronicus. :)

 

Note that the "my finds" PQ GPX file isn't just a list of caches, it also includes your "found it" logs (and any other logs you may have posted on each cache). MGP.com uses this information to determine the "unique found caches" vs. "total cache finds". In other words, if you're missing your "found it" logs, you may get unexpected results.

 

Hmmm good tip - thanks dfx.

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