This document tracks a planned full re-write. The current main branch has the following concerns:

• Can generate invalid GEDCOM (at least in theory)

  • create a semantic GEDCOM library that handles extension tags, etc https://github.com/gedcom7code/js-gedcom/
  • refactor code to use that library instead of ad-hoc GEDCOM generation
    • needs findOrAdd function that checks EXID/UID substructures (added 2023-11-02)

• Cannot merge files

  • 8-generation JSON has all source citations as opaque URLs, omits some events
  • JSON not trivially mergeable because of ahnentafel and d'aboville strings
  • Initial code can't merge, but semantic library should make it possible
  • build a stateful driver: create, feed each JSON file, dump
    • maybe also policy-based priority queue of additional API calls to make

• Discards some information (evidence, attribution, some contributors)

  • add using extensions or NOTEs

• Some machine-parseable becomes human-only (some name part qualifiers, event types)

  • add g7 extensions to store these

• Code ugly, not maintainable

  • split out code for datatypes, d'aboville
  • add a file(?) describing how each gx structure maps to g7
    • e.g. /persons//facts//place/original maps to INDI.*.PLAC payload
    • FAM will need to be a special case, maybe others too
  • (requested by GoldieMay) add TypeScript annotations

• No test files

  • easy version: given JSON, verify it creates valid GEDCOM
  • harder version: given JSON, verify no data was lost