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Minor edits based on discussion in mavlink/mavlink#2272

Open Maarrk opened this issue 7 months ago • 2 comments

Mostly regards authors of custom dialects.

The phrase "next-largest unused dialect number" was unclear to me, and I found multiple interpretations online. I hope that I understood it correctly, but now the language feels unambiguous with non-native English ability even if a bit verbose.

Also transcribed and sorted the allocated ranges from all.xml, because I found the order and the formatting in that file to be a bit confusing.

Added link to MARSH-Sim (see mavlink/mavlink#2272) to research projects using the protocol. I wouldn't do self-promotion, but I think it's a good showcase of how useful MAVLink can be, regardless of how the dialect PR will go forward.

Maarrk avatar May 23 '25 12:05 Maarrk

Gosh, you're right, that is cryptic.

The next unallocated range is

    messages: 52500 - 52599 (< 60000)
    commands: 52500 - 52599 (< 60000)

So I would like MARSH to use those ID ranges for messages and commands. We would then allocate the next chunk for the unallocated range. That could all happen when you add your PR.

The main source for ranges is the all.xml file: https://github.com/mavlink/mavlink/blob/master/message_definitions/v1.0/all.xml#L68-L71

I will tidy up https://mavlink.io/en/guide/define_xml_element.html#message_id_ranges to make this more clear, but did you see the direction somewhere else as well?


The phrase "next-largest unused dialect number" was unclear to me, and I found multiple interpretations online

Yuk. Ok, so this assumed you were contributing into common.xml. IN which case what we want to do is have people find the next unused id with a little space around it for other . I can tidy that up too. But I'll do it all once you've had a chance to respond.

hamishwillee avatar May 28 '25 05:05 hamishwillee

I don't think that "Message Id Ranges" is unclear, seems fairly simple that we get a range and allocate consecutively inside it.

For me it's about the <dialect> element that I don't understand the use for, and the rule for choosing the number was ambiguous.

Maarrk avatar May 28 '25 09:05 Maarrk