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Semanics of message fields found in 'profile.xlsx'

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over 2 years ago

Hello fellow developers,

after spending quite some time getting my head around FIT files and the general ecosystem I managed to answer the bulk of my initial questions with the documentation available. However, if I understand correctly, the 'profile.xlsx' file within the SDK is to be considered the canonical reference for (message) field definitions, is that correct?

whilst some of the field rows do have some comments, most of them do not and I struggle to understand the 'semantics' of quite a few of those fields. Is there a comprehensive resource documenting what those fields *mean* or would it be appropriate to ask here on the forum about the ones I cant work out from their names (they are quite numerous)?

If no such documentation exists so far, I would aim to generate a proper write up of anything we can bring out here on the forum so future users have an easier time understanding the data.

A  recent question by another user (https://forums.garmin.com/developer/fit-sdk/f/discussion/303041/in-the-fit-files-what-is-the-enhanced_speed)
on this forum illustrates the kind of question I have.

Thanks for your patience and support,

Eric

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Just reading through this as well, I think this would be very handy to see

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    If you have specific questions regarding the publicly documented messages or fields found in FIT Activity, Course, or Workout files we will do what we can to answer them. The File Types section in the online docs as well as the three sections in Profile.xlsx labeled Activity File Messages, Course File Messages, and Workout File Messages cover the messages and fields that are most commonly found in those file types. The Decoding FIT Activity Files Recipe has a section on how to use the FIT CSV Tool to learn about message types found in Activity files. That same technique can be used with any FIT file.

    There are messages in the SDK that are used in other file types and for those we typically do not go into anymore detail beyond what is in Profile.xlsx. 

  • 0 7 months ago

    This 'challenge' has been around for some time. I don't think Garmin considers it in their interest to document how they use the FIT format/protocol. As you know, they leave numerous items they use in un-documented messages and fields.

    Can we consider some online platform such as GIT or a Wiki of some sort or a trivial Amazon cloud database app which could be lightly moderated yet open to a moderate group of contributors for editing? A lot of this information floats around in the shadows with people like me who've spent a lot of time doing trial-and-error experiments to learn what Garmin wants.  I don't have a particular implementation in-mind, and I realize there'd be some additional management challenges, but it shouldn't be on a Garmin site where they might bristle as we find and expose how some of this stuff works.  I guess its not only a respository for conclusions, but we'd need a forum to discuss intermediate findings amongst ourselves.