Passing text from input files to screen

[haskett]

I know this topic has come up before, but are there any plans for RR to not parse text fields in the input file so that they can be passed directly to the video?

Right now, I'm having to use RR for numeric fields and another solution for text fields.

[Weston@HPTuners]

At this time, all data fields are interpreted and loaded numerically, which is very efficient in terms of both memory use and processing performance. The idea of text fields comes up occasionally, but there is some inherent difficulty in nailing down a strategy for supporting that, mainly because it's not widely used and I haven't seen a consistent way that this type of information would be presented in the data file or used by the user. Most every data product takes some liberties with the "CSV" format, some even creating files that aren't really CSV at all, and implementing text fields within that seems to lead to an even wider divergence.

It would help to know what type of text fields you're wanting to use, which file format (and which data system produced it), and how you'd display them, so that type of use can be considered for future planning...

[haskett]

I'm using a custom, in-car rally software that produces CSV with both numbers and text. The two most interesting text fields for overlay onto the RR video are the name of the upcoming turn and also the description of the turn.