Consuming applications not incorporating changes to fields when record id is unchanged

[westontrillium]

We have noticed consuming applications incorrectly assume that a shape or stop is unchanged when its id remains the same. These applications process new stop_ids and new shape_ids, but will often ignore existing ones between datasets, even when values such as lat/lons, stop names, or codes, are changed.

It seems common sense to us to assume that a record should be able to maintain a consistent id when a new dataset is posted but still have other changes to the data (e.g., stop_name, lat/lon) incorporated. Consumers should be processing such changes regardless of whether a record has a fresh id.

We are wondering if there is either a gap in the Best Practices (http://gtfs.org/schedule/best-practices/#dataset-publishing-general-practices) or if this is an existing norm that is not being enforced/followed?

[gcamp]

Your interpretation is correct, I would consider that bugs in consuming applications.

Relevant past discussion : #171. Everyone agreed that stable ids was generally going in the right direction but we need to clear up #288 before we make it happen.

[leonardehrenfried]

I agree with @gcamp. A feed is only scoped by itself.

If you consume a feed you have to totally disregard the information in the previous versions.

Otherwise you'd have to change the stop id whenever you make changes to a stop's properties and this is definitely not what I want. In some countries there are national stop registers and using the same stop id in several applications and formats is extremely useful.

[stevenmwhite]

Also in agreement with the previous comments.

We change the data within a given entity ID all the time. If a consumer is not looking at that data simply because the ID is the same then it's definitely bad practice, and probably even more (as @gcamp said) a bug.

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