PLAC in header or with the place itself.

[mother10]

I have a bit of a disagreement with some software, say ProgA.
Their developers state a legal GEDCOM can be without any PLAC. Not in the header, nor with a place in the file itself.

The wording in the place-structure says:

The payload contains a comma-separated list of region names, ordered from smallest to largest. The specific meaning of each element is given by the FORM (p.73) substructure, or in the HEAD. PLAC. FORM (p.73) if there is no FORM substructure. If neither FORM exists, the meaning of the elements are not defined in this specification beyond being names of jurisdictions of some kind, ordered from smallest to largest.

They say that nowhere is mentioned that it is obligatory to have a PLAC.
My other program (ProgB) gives a warning when inputting that file, saying there is no PLAC in the header,
The places in the GEDCOM of ProgA are given as:
2 PLAC Alkmaar, NH, NLD
But that is done by me, knowing jurisdictions are necessary.
Unfortunately ProgA has just 1 textfield to give the placename, and does not do anything with jurisdictions.
But knowing juridsdictions are meant to be there, I enter places in that 1 field as: Alkmaar, NH, NLD.

Now I understand in GEDCOM before Version 7, that probably was the way to go.
But we have version 7.0 now, should not a PLAC.FORM, either in the heading or with all PLAC's in the file itself, be obligatory?

Or will that problem be dealt with in Version 7.1 or 8.0?
I must admit, a program outputting GEDCOM7 but not having the necessary fields for dealing with place jurisdictions, looks very oldfashioned to me.

[Norwegian-Sardines]

As far as I’m concerned a PLAC tag is not required anywhere in the transmission!

It is completely possible in a real life small study to not know the place of any fact occurrence. Is it probably that at some point a place becomes known, sure!

[Norwegian-Sardines]

But we have version 7.0 now, should not a PLAC.FORM, either in the heading or with all PLAC's in the file itself, be obligatory?

I personally believe that PLAC.FORM should be deprecated! Too many language and location possibilities to create a reasonable FORM set!

[dthaler]

Discussion in GEDCOM Steering Committee 25 FEB 2025:

• The use of PLAC.FORM is tracked in issue Add note about empty place levels #495, including the comments about it being obsolete. Discussion on that topic can continue there.
• The question about whether PLAC is obligatory or not somewhere in the file has been answered in that the specification makes it explicitly optional in all cases. So programs should accept GEDCOM files without any PLAC tag.