Project-GC Forum - Method requests

Re: Getting home country and region

bmuzzin — Fri, 16 May 2025 03:58:27 +0000

I would argue that challenges that would just ask for home country or region could be easily cheated. Eg. If the challenge is "find 100 caches outside your home country"... A user can just change their home location on geocaching and viola, they qualify. It's much harder to cheat the place with your most finds, which is almost always where you actually live.

Also, not all users provide their home location, so that presents a major problem.

Getting home country and region

KaiserVonChina — Fri, 09 May 2025 10:39:31 +0000

I would like to have a function like PGC.GetHomeCountryAndRegion() that would tell me the home country and home region of the player, for which a checker is executed.

I totally understand that the exact location cannot be exposed and already the county would fall under "data privacy violation". But country and region does not fall under "protection worthy data" even for something as sensitive as medical data (i.e. "Protected Health Information (PHI)").

And country and region of a player can already be found out e.g. via "Statistics/Top finders". It would make checker development easier, if a script could simply ask for "home country" instead of calculating a histogram to find the country with most finds.

Re: Adding a map to the checker

syfun — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 18:12:20 +0000

This worked perfectly! Exactly what I was looking for.

Thank you!

Re: Adding a map to the checker

KaiserVonChina — Tue, 08 Oct 2024 15:24:11 +0000

Feel free to have a look at my "Generic Country / Region / County Checker with Map Output" script.

This supports showing counties and / or regions where caches were found in green and missing counties an / or regions in red.
Missing counties / regions will only be shown when there are some country/region/county restrictions configured in the tag, since it makes little sense to show the entire world mostly in red.

Here is one example for a checker that is using my script: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC923YE/91217

The script can be configured in a very flexible way and gives you full control whether regions and/or counties and/or caches shall be shown on the map.

Re: GetOldest and cache attributes

bmuzzin — Fri, 07 Jun 2024 15:21:51 +0000

So... I've figured out a way to do this, without needing the method. Basically, I just need to call GetHides for the owner_id of every oldest cache that GetOldest returns. GetHides returns things similar to GetFinds, so I can get the attributes from there and then match based on gccode. *Obviously* this isn't ideal, because that's a lot of extra work for the database... but, it works.

Here's the first iteration of it in action (who knows if it'll be published tho! :))
https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GCARHG4/89037

GetOldest and cache attributes

bmuzzin — Thu, 21 Dec 2023 16:45:15 +0000

I'd like to do a challenge where you need to find the oldest caches containing certain attributes. For example, my first foray was going to be the 10/50 oldest tree climbs in Ontario, Canada. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like this is possible currently, because GetOldest doesn't return the attribute sets of a cache. (I would assume this is the case for GetHighest/Lowest/Favorites as well, although I haven't confirmed). I assume this data exists in the database.

Would it be possible to add to the params for those methods, to request certain fields of the results (as with GetHides)? Or alternatively, if there was a (fast) query to return details about a cache, given a GCcode (and that isn't necessarily a user's find), I could also work with that. Thanks!

Re: GetContinentDefinitions()

magma1447 — Thu, 27 Apr 2023 07:26:16 +0000

Not sure why it wasn't exposed. But a better answer has just been posted in https://project-gc.com/forum/read?4,52692

Re: Adding a map to the checker

Hügh — Thu, 23 Mar 2023 22:19:55 +0000

This is something that the scriptwriter has to include as part of the script, and is not something that taggers can (usually) just "turn on."

I'll have a look to see if I can find a county checker that generates maps.

Re: Adding a map to the checker

syfun — Mon, 20 Mar 2023 23:04:25 +0000

I have found a similar checker: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC31WZ9/59569

This one checks for 3 finds in each of the townships in a county in Ohio. Is there a way to adapt this to check for finds in counties in a state?

Thanks
syfun

Adding a map to the checker

syfun — Sat, 18 Mar 2023 00:00:35 +0000

Hello,

How can I add a map to a checker results?

For example: https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC8ZGGX/54659 requires attending events in 25 Michigan counties. It outputs which counties the cacher has attended events in. I would like to add a map, in this case for Michigan, that has the counties shaded in that the cacher has attended events in. It would be even better if the attended counties were green and the unattended counties were red like in the "map counties" tool. About the closest thing I can come up with for an example is the checker for https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC411A1/42821

Thanks
syfun

GetFinds(): filter by attribute

queengooborg — Wed, 05 Oct 2022 04:28:45 +0000

It would be great to add an option where cache finds can be filtered by attributes. I've run into a few checker requests that would greatly benefit from this, as it would help reduce processing time and system resources!

GetContinentDefinitions()

JakeDot — Sat, 09 Apr 2022 10:56:23 +0000

The Documentation mentions a method GetContinentDefinitions(), but it seems not to be exposed to LUA?

Has it been removed or was it planned at some point? The documentation seems a bit jumbled.

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

sloth96 — Wed, 11 Aug 2021 16:03:14 +0000

So I have been kicking the tired on this version of GetOldestCaches. It appears to work generally ok.

Sometimes it does appear to return more caches than the limit. Functionally this does not seem to matter for me. However I am moderately concerned this has a performance impact.

A sample script is here https://project-gc.com/Challenges//62550

Thanks

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

sloth96 — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 23:13:38 +0000

This is the sort of checker I am experimenting with. There are certainly optimizations to be made to this one to reduce the number of calls but the functionality is basically there.

https://project-gc.com/Challenges//62459

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

sloth96 — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 10:58:24 +0000

Let me experiment further with using this to make an "adaptive jasmer" for filters where some months are missing or a small number of caches away from missing. A virtual jasmer is such an example: Find a virtual cache in each month since the start of caching that has a virtual cache. Or a Large Jasmer is also such an example. Also regional checkers like https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC2WMPX/23571 may require manual tweaking in the future.

Currently a world wide versions would be difficult as this call and the GetNumInArea both require a country. To do a full jasmer would require that both calls work fast enough to support a number of countries times number of months calls in under the time limit. GetNumInArea is too slow at this time to support something like one call per month since the start of geocaching.

Frankly my preference would be a faster worldwide GetNumInArea without a country requirement than this call. The nice thing about GetNumInArea being faster and without a country requirement would be that it would allow tailoring to a Jasmer to require months with only some number of caches remaining in the month and not require manual intervations as caches archive. So based on a current single jasmer 4 caches in a month may be set as the required threshhold.

So this is an observation that a further request could be coming shortly based on how experimentation progresses.

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

magma1447 — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 07:57:46 +0000

I have now released the code. Not tested, but it was very minor changes so I am quite confident it will work.

I didn't really get this part. I interpret it as you wish me to change something. If so, please explain again.

Quote

I started going down this road as an alternative to using GetNumCachesInArea to create a jasmer checker that will automatically notice missing months. Like GetNumCachesInArea the country required limitation will prevent a worldwide version. It still would be nice to specify for a single region so we do not need to manually update checkers as caches get archived.

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

sloth96 — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 17:07:11 +0000

Much appreciated. I will test tomorrow.

I really

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

magma1447 — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 15:35:50 +0000

Parameter requiredFP was broken as well.

Re: GetOldestCaches issue

magma1447 — Thu, 05 Aug 2021 15:35:12 +0000

You are correct, some copy paste issues, or maybe just not thinking enough when doing the code and sanitation for the filters. I'll fix them today and will try to release them tomorrow.

GetOldestCaches issue

sloth96 — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 14:00:54 +0000

There appears to be an issue using GetOldestCaches when there is a minHiddenDate set in the filter. When it is set the following error appears:

Error 8, lua_callbacks.php:1525  Undefined variable: minHiddenDate

Example of working code can be seen here:https://project-gc.com/Challenges//62414
Non-working code is https://project-gc.com/Challenges//62415

The working code uses

testfilter={}
testfilter.country="United States"
testfilter.excludeArchived=true

mycs=PGC.GetOldestCaches({filter=testfilter,limit=1})

The non working code uses:

testfilter={}
testfilter.country="United States"
testfilter.excludeArchived=true
testfilter.minHiddenDate="1970-01-01"
mycs=PGC.GetOldestCaches({filter=testfilter,limit=1})

I started going down this road as an alternative to using GetNumCachesInArea to create a jasmer checker that will automatically notice missing months. Like GetNumCachesInArea the country required limitation will prevent a worldwide version. It still would be nice to specify for a single region so we do not need to manually update checkers as caches get archived.

Re: GetAggregateCaches

sloth96 — Wed, 04 Aug 2021 01:38:25 +0000

https://project-gc.com/forum/read?4,53808,53808#msg-53808

Dr. Acorn's advice

Re: GetAggregateCaches

sloth96 — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 22:28:04 +0000

Dr. Acorn got me over the hump. I am still frustrated that I cannot request the entire world for something like a jasmer by month.

I am also finding it is a slow API. It seems to be a 4 to 5 seconds per call which for a Jasmer could be on the order of 200 for a complete newbie or rare cache type. It would be nice if it sped up be a factor of 20 or more. My guess is that some intermediate table might need to be created.

Re: GetAggregateCaches

travelingGeek — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 19:05:09 +0000

Sorry, I missed you message in May. I will give it a try.... although the need has long gone past. I'm still very curious about the virtuals.

GetNumCachesInTimeWindow()

sloth96 — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 17:19:11 +0000

I am looking to create a more flexible version of the Jasmer checker that automatically identifies if there are any caches available in that time window. Some challenges such as the massachusetts month by month with this checker play games with adjusting the windows. Checker seen here. https://project-gc.com/Challenges/GC2KN9X/35021

However unlike the Massachusetts challenge, I would like to specify the type. As a for instance a Mystery Jasmer where you do a Jasmer with only Mystery caches. Instead of manually adjusting the windows as caches get archived and published, it would be nice to let the computer take care of it. This adjustment would be more of an issue for rare cache types such as Wherigo's and Virtuals.

Basically this would look very similiar to GetNumCachesInArea() except country would be optional.

Re: GetAggregateCaches

sloth96 — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 17:11:43 +0000

After testing I cannot get GetNumCachesInArea() to work.

Re: Accessing Public Attributes in PGC API Calls

magma1447 — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 07:23:18 +0000

LUA is executed using MediaWiki's LuaSandbox. Max memory usage and Max cpu time is handled by their code entirely.

I don't know how well documented it is what it's actually doing, I never looked it up. When switching sandbox implementation I just checked that it worked reasonable. From Project-GC's perspective it didn't really matter if it was 30 or 40 seconds for example, but there needs to be some kind of max.

Queuing for tokens and other pre/post code is not included. Since the max-settings are set for the sandbox, it's that code alone. Here is some cut'n'paste code of how it's setup (not all callbacks included).

$sandbox = new LuaSandbox();
$sandbox->setMemoryLimit( PGC_LUA_Sandbox::MAXMEM );
$sandbox->setCPULimit( PGC_LUA_Sandbox::MAXCPUTIME );
PGC_LUA_Sandbox::$sandbox = $sandbox;
$sandbox->registerLibrary('PGC', [
	'GetCPUUsage' => function() {
		return [PGC_LUA_Sandbox::$sandbox->getCPUUsage()];
	},
	'Log' => 'PGC_LUA_Sandbox::Log',
	'GetFinds' => 'PGC_LUA_Sandbox::GetFinds',
	'GetHides' => 'PGC_LUA_Sandbox::GetHides',
	'HTMLEscape' => 'PGC_LUA_Sandbox::HTMLEscape',
]);

Re: GetHighest method

magma1447 — Sun, 27 Jun 2021 07:16:07 +0000

I was wrong, it does indeed have regions. I came home yesterday after a quite long trip and obviously I wasn't awake enough when looking this up.

But as DrAcorn says, there are no active geocaches in Guatemala/Guatemala. 28 archived, 0 active. Sorry for causing confusion.

Re: Accessing Public Attributes in PGC API Calls

sloth96 — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 21:46:13 +0000

Another question that is more curious. os.time measures wallclock time.

The CPUtime name of the variable suggests that os.clock is the better as a measure of "time" so that stalled CPU's. Also the language in the template talks about CPUusage. CPU time can pass more slowly than wall time.

What sort of time is the limit really measured in? Also as sometime checkers need to wait for tokens is this time included or not in the quota?

Re: GetHighest method

sloth96 — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 21:40:07 +0000

So using the following script: https://project-gc.com/Challenges//61662 for user Retired Guy, many subdivisions of Guatemala show up in the region field. I concatenate region and country for caches and get quite the list. It also gives a list of caches that have been tagged with this in project-gc's database. Caches are pulled either with GetFinds or GetHighest for display.

And geocaching.com does not have sub divisions of Guatemala so that is a related question.

Let me know if you need a clearer debugging case.

Re: Accessing Public Attributes in PGC API Calls

magma1447 — Sat, 26 Jun 2021 19:39:37 +0000

It's more that I didn't know that the consts showed up in the documentation at all. The danger of automatic documentation I guess.