GenoPro Support Forum

I am the author of several programs that process GEDCOM files. Some users have sent me GEDCOM files exported from GenoPro. The HEAD record from one of the files looks like this:

0 HEAD 1 SOUR GenoPro 2 NAME GenoPro® - Picture Your Family Tree!(TM) 2 VERS 3.0.1.1 2 CORP GenoPro 2 ADDR http://www.genopro.com 1 DATE 1 DEC 2018 1 CHAR UTF-8 1 GEDC 2 VERS 5.5 2 FORM LINAGE-LINKED 0 GLOBAL ...

That file includes several non-standard GEDCOM records, as do other similar files where the SOUR value is "GenoPro".

While doing some research on this, I discovered that there is a plug-in (or skin?) for the GenoPro report writer that also creates GEDCOM files. I found a GEDCOM file online that may be written by that plug-in/skin, I am not sure. It's HEAD record looks like this:

0 HEAD 1 SOUR GenoPro® 2 VERS 2.0.1.3/2007.02.28 2 CORP GenoPro Inc. 3 ADDR http://www.genopro.com 1 DATE 3 DEC 2007 1 SUBM @subm1@ 1 GEDC 2 VERS 5.5 2 FORM LINEAGE_LINKED 1 CHAR UTF-8 0 @ind01542@ INDI ...

The example above is from 2007 so it may not be of any use. The HEAD record has some obvious differences, such as the SOUR value: "GenoPro" (ex 1) versus "GenoPro®" (ex 2). I assume the "Â" character is the result of some character encoding issue, perhaps caused by the way the files were handled before they got to me. The HEAD record for example 2 is valid except for the "_" in "LINEAGE_LINKED", which should be "-", i.e., "LINEAGE-LINKED".

So, my questions:

1 - Do GenoPro users use the plug-in/skin to export GEDCOM files from GenoPro?

2 - What is the SOUR value written by the plug-in? I'd like to use the SOUR value to distinguish between the two GenoPro GEDCOM types, but I am not confident I have a valid example file from the plug-in.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

John

Hi John,

As you are aware, GenoPro has built-in 'Export to Gedcom' facility but unfortunately produces a completely non-standard file that is next to useless for data transfer!   Its only úse' is to re-import the data into GenoPro with out loss of information.

However GenoPro also has a Report Generator facility that runs a scripting engine allowing users to generate their own reports via 'Skin Templates'.

I am along time user of GenoPro and have developed  as a hobby a number of Report 'Skins', many of which are now included with the GenoPro product.

Many years ago I developed the Export to Gedcom skin using JScript and GenoPro's Report Generator API (www.genopro.com/sdk) to produce a standard Gedcom file that contains as much as possible of the GenoPro data. Many users use this and I certainly strongly recommend its use over the built-in export.

In your examples it looks as though they have been saved with ANSI encoding but both exports use UTF8 encoding.

One way to distinguish between them is the '/' character in the VERS tag.  my Report Skin has [GenoPro version]/[date of Report Skin version] whilst the built-in version will only have the GenoPro version.

Thanks for pointing out the error in the FORM tag I'll sort that.

If you receive files from the builtin version I suggest you inform the submitter to use the Report Skin version instead.

Happy to give any further help but you can download GenoPro for free and experiment with small samples (up to 25 individuals) and save them without a licence. The download will include the Export to Gedcom via Report Generator skin.

GenoPro is not that clever at importing Gedcom data either so at present I am writing a 'web app' in HTML5 / Javascript and utilising some excellent Javascript libraries to provide an alternative import.

Happy New Year!

Ron

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'lego audio video erro ergo disco' or "I read, I listen, I watch, I make mistakes, therefore I learn"

Edited: Tuesday, January 1, 2019 by genome

I use a GEDCOM file from Genopro to import a family tree into Genome MatePro (www.getgmp.com) for Autosomal DNA Analysis.

Page 125 of the latest GMP Manual (2018-09-09 version) says:

"A Gedcom in 5.5 format using UTF-8 is needed (5.5.1 has been known to cause issues). If you are using Legacy Family Tree, select the “Generic” format."

I've tried both versions of the GEDCOM available on GenoPro, and only the Report Generator version works for transfer to GMP.  I'm not sure if it uses the 5.5 or the 5.5.1 format.

Ron,

Thanks for your prompt and detailed reply. I will amend my programs to use the "/" in the HEAD.SOUR.VERS value to distinguish between the two GenoPro GEDCOM formats. I will also experiment with the trial version of GenoPro.

John

Ron,

I installed the trial version of GenoPro and created a very small test dataset.

The standard export creates a GEDCOM file with "1 SOUR GenoPro" whereas exporting via the report generator yields "1 SOUR GenoPro®". Rather than use the "/" in the version number, I'll use the difference in the SOUR values to distinguish between the two variations ("®" means from report generator).

When I exported from the report generator, the file included a blank line after the "2 VERS ..." record:

0 HEAD 1 SOUR GenoPro® 2 VERS 3.0.1.4/2015.02.01 2 CORP GenoPro Inc. 3 ADDR http://www.genopro.com 1 DATE 4 JAN 2019 1 SUBM @subm1@ 1 GEDC 2 VERS 5.5 2 FORM LINEAGE_LINKED 1 CHAR UTF-8 0 @ind00001@ INDI

Most readers will ignore the empty record and issue an error message. However, some programs are more sensitive to issues in the HEAD record than elsewhere in the file, so it's best to resolve HEAD record issues.

I was a little surprised to see that "GEDCOM Validator" by Chronoplex was flummoxed by the empty line; it failed to process the HEAD records, reported that "GEDCOM version '2.1' is not supported", and gave up. When I removed the empty line, it processed the file and reported these issues:

Info: The file will be processed as a GEDCOM 5.5 file using illegal encoding 'UTF-8'. Error: 'UTF-8' encoding is only valid for GEDCOM 5.5.1 and later. Warning: The length of the <MULTIMEDIA_FILE_REFERENCE> is limited to 30 code units but this is too short for most file paths.

I am not aware of any programs that adhere to the <MULTIMEDIA_FILE_REFERENCE> limit; it's ridiculous.

I was surprised the Chronoplex validator did not mention that "LINEAGE_LINKED" was invalid. I changed the value to "LINEAGE-LINKED" and it accepted that, too. I double-checked the 5.5 and 5.5.1 specs, and only "LINEAGE-LINKED" is valid. I specified a completely bogus value, and it reported that as an error. So, I think the Chronoplex validator is accepting an illegal value there. It's pretty solid overall, but it's just software and so it has issues.

I also checked the original file (with the empty line) using the online GEDCOM validator at http://ged-inline.elasticbeanstalk.com/validate.

*** Line 3: Invalid content for VERS tag: '3.0.1.4/2015.02.01' is more than 15 characters, the maximum length for <VERSION_NUMBER> *** Line 10: Note that the de facto standard GEDCOM version is version 5.5.1 *** Line 12: Invalid content for CHAR tag: 'UTF-8' is not a valid <CHARACTER_SET> *** Line 25: Invalid content for FILE tag: 'C:\Exhibits\1963-00-00-Cardinal,Peter-5140-hs.jpg' is more than 30 characters, the maximum length for <MULTIMEDIA_FILE_REFERENCE>

So, the ged-online validator ignored the blank line but reported another issue in addition to the ones reported by Chronplex: <VERSION_NUMBER> is too long. I've seen plenty of software with long VERS values though I think the trend is to stick to version numbers only and use shorter values. So, for example, FTM used to have "1 SOUR FTM, 2 VERS Family Tree Maker (21.0.0.723)", but now they have "1 SOUR FTM, 2 VERS 23.1.0.1480".

Technically, using UTF-8 is also invalid with GEDCOM 5.5, but plenty of other programs also do that.

The main issue is the empty line. Perhaps I did something to trigger it. If so, I am not sure what. I looked at the report generator options and I didn't see anything. If you are going to change the "LINEAGE_LINKED" to "LINEAGE-LINKED", perhaps you can investigate the empty line and fix that (if necessary), too.

John

Thanks for reporting back your findings John.

I have found where the blank line is coming from and will remove it. I will also make Gedcom version 5.5.1 the default so as to cover UTF-8 and allow automatic inclusion of extra tags, e.g. LANG & LATI

best wishes,

Ron

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'lego audio video erro ergo disco' or "I read, I listen, I watch, I make mistakes, therefore I learn"

Ron,

Sounds good.

If you contact me via PM on this forum and include your email address, I'll send you a license for my primary GEDCOM-based product.

John

Hi Ron,

I see you plan to change the version number from 5.5 to 5.5.1 for the GEDCOM report.  I'm not sure if this is going to create problems for me importing a GEDCOM file into Genome MatePro.  See the outlined section below.






What are my options here?  Do I generate the GEDCOM file and then go in and edit the VERS from 5.5.1 to 5.5, or something else?

Are there any other changes you plan to make to bring it up to the 5.5.1 spec?

Thanks,

Nick

The Gedcom Export is already using version 5.5.1 of the spec, because it has UTF-8 encoding, but as John pointed out, the header is technically invalid as it stated version 5.5, so this amendment is to correct that mistake.

There has always been the option via the Configuration Parameters dialogue to include some of the newer 5.5.1 tags, i.e. WWW, EMAIL, LATI & LONG.  

Now when that option is set (as it will be by default) then the header version will reflect that, i.e. will set to 5.5.1.  If you uncheck the Use 5.5.1 Tags option then the header will show 5.5 but encoding (CHAR) will still be UTF-8, maintaining the status quo.

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'lego audio video erro ergo disco' or "I read, I listen, I watch, I make mistakes, therefore I learn"

Hello Gurus, Masters an other experts,

I have read your discussion with great interest - but understood just a little.

Now I'm confused and don't know what I have to do to improve my GEDCOM Export files to be readable in other programs.

Will you please give an simple advice where to change what to a normal GenoPro user?

Thanks,

Erhardt (using GenoPro since 13 years)