[librecat-dev] Implict update of Catmandu-PICA with possible breaking changes

[Voß, Jakob]

Hi,

I just released PICA::Data 2.00 that breaks compatibility of PICA Path expressions with the previous version. New installations of Catmandu::PICA will use the new version without breaking tests beause the changes have not been covered by tests. In particular the following will not work as before:

- A PICA Path that references a whole field (no specific subfield) with position must use different syntax. Please explicitly reference subfield(s) (e.g. 123X$*/1-2 for position 1 to 2 across all subfields). 123X/1-2 will now be read as field 123X with occurrence range 1-2 (old syntax 123X[1-2] still works as well)

- A PICA Path without explicit occurrence will only reference fields with no occurrence (=occurrence zero) instead of any occurrence, unless the path also references fields on level 2. For instance `0...` will not catch field 012X/03, so use explicit occurrence wildcard * if needed (e.g. 0.../*).

The rest of PICA Path syntax should be backwards compatible.

By the way I am about to release a final specification of PICA Path expressions based on discussion with Nico Wagner (DNB) to get a syntax that can be used across different tools for PICA+ data:

http://format.gbv.de/query/picapath (in German)

Cheers
Jakob