I only recently discovered that Jochen Topf has published a command line tool based on his great Osmium library. The Osmium library is a C++ library optimized for working with OSM files in different formats like XML and PBF and is very fast. While the original library is geared towards developers (besides the c++ version there are also python and node bindings), the command line tool is great for normal users.

To give it a try, I decided to have a look at an Italy extract from Geofabrik I had downloaded in March and which was still lingering on my disk. Linux and Mac users know, the great potential of the shell lies in the ability to perform multiple commands in sequence by piping the output of one operation to the next tool in the chain.

Here is what I used to get a list with the last modifiers (mappers) of every object in the file, sorted by the number of contributions (only current version of undeleted objects have been counted here, but Osmium-tool also allows for analyzing full history files if I am not misguided):

osmium cat 20170302_italy.osm.pbf -f opl|cut -d' ' -f7|cut -c 2- \
         |sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|head -n 250 >italy-top250.txt

I’m not very good in using the shell, so maybe this command line can be improved, feel free to suggest improvements in the comments.

The binary extract I used is 1.2GB and was sitting on a network share and I was using a slow dual core MacMini (this is why there aren’t spaces around the

pipe symbol, the Mac shell doesn’t like them) so it took a while (maybe half an hour), also because the sort command in the shell takes some time, but IMHO this is totally acceptable for occasional use.

In case you are interested, this is the output (I have numbered the lines with cat -n. Unfortunately there seems to be a bug or a feature so that the markdown in this diary is removing the newlines). Needless to say, many of the higher ranks have been “cheating” by importing big amounts of data ;-)

(The format is: rank number-of-objects username) 1 29194970 mcheckimport – 2 11687326 DarkSwan_Import – 3 4783408 simone – 4 3498422 mcheck – 5 3158791 corfedeimport – 6 2767460 Max1234-ITA – 7 2180468 nuvolabianca – 8 2097580 Alberto58 – 9 2065697 Arlas – 10 2039526 GiuseppeAmici_IT – 11 1944201 dvd0_CTRVenetoImport – 12 1846327 Al3xius – 13 1399149 kaitu – 14 1331688 pikappa79 – 15 1313970 Alecs01 – 16 1307324 Pab09 – 17 1271852 Diego%20%Guidotti – 18 872370 roscolosco – 19 802453 dieterdreist – 20 775391 Sembola – 21 759292 aldoct – 22 728828 dvdzero – 23 722980 josil – 24 698823 Alexander%20%Roalter – 25 696697 morsi – 26 688070 Stefano%20%Salvador – 27 669971 albertux – 28 666608 Fredie – 29 660525 Tizianos – 30 655812 IlBano – 31 635687 BudSpencer63 – 32 629700 GatoSelvadego – 33 590057 fayor – 34 539531 Ale_Zena_IT – 35 530778 arcanma – 36 520790 RColombo – 37 519351 ilrobi – 38 513343 Heinz_V – 39 504228 Mich74 – 40 501426 sabas88 – 41 497505 sbiribizio – 42 494637 Davlak – 43 485771 vpettenati – 44 479774 dan980 – 45 477834 DarkFlash – 46 477421 simone_girardelli – 47 470226 sabas-import – 48 466439 Gianfranco2014 – 49 460886 sorcrosc – 50 459812 dgitto – 51 451687 gpstracks – 52 444212 gvil_import – 53 431752 corfede – 54 428783 Ken%20%Hayabusa – 55 425416 pippinu – 56 424626 StePedro83 – 57 422138 sponge – 58 418211 vancori – 59 412278 adirricor – 60 410575 bellazambo – 61 405470 David%20%Paleino – 62 405372 Davide%20%Governale – 63 405364 demon_box – 64 401735 Odiug – 65 400067 voschix – 66 398116 venerdi – 67 389878 zarch – 68 388100 import%20%edifici%20%palermo%20%2014 – 69 384016 vlattanzi – 70 383706 Aury88 – 71 383522 RAFVG%20%import – 72 378605 dani64 – 73 370847 Griphon – 74 367640 Martj9 – 75 364584 rugamarcus – 76 359694 50x34 – 77 358963 Fabry – 78 349027 fedc – 79 348793 achim%20%becker – 80 340916 peppe10 – 81 335764 coso – 82 334861 mauriziobis – 83 333969 Luca%20%Dorigo – 84 332989 TheNick – 85 329211 GeofixFe – 86 321319 Lykos64 – 87 315738 makakko – 88 314594 iiizio – 89 313882 Cascafico – 90 308928 dan980-import – 91 306593 Geofreund1 – 92 305833 Goffredo – 93 297306 niubii – 94 294946 glaucos – 95 294725 Guido_RL – 96 292623 dino57 – 97 290158 colasurf – 98 286777 Ale_Zena_IT-import – 99 284524 Axel2009 – 100 281100 ualios – 101 275448 mauro742 – 102 274737 Geograficamente – 103 255450 jeawrong – 104 252317 openpablo3 – 105 252154 Eraclitus – 106 250060 Sal73x – 107 248172 Bredy – 108 246745 jaimemd – 109 237132 lorenzoguidotti – 110 235719 vrmap – 111 233713 Francesco%20%Viti – 112 225989 alessandrob – 113 222961 tyr_asd – 114 214408 carths81 – 115 213959 marcoSt – 116 213493 Paolo%20%Gianfrancesco – 117 211178 scratera – 118 206829 andgas54 – 119 206095 Michele%20%Aquilani – 120 205991 tungstentt – 121 202647 bt1950 – 122 200155 danyzeta – 123 199950 Mattia%20%P – 124 196705 hikerit – 125 195332 MarcoR – 126 195010 SingletrailMap – 127 194586 LuSirto – 128 193440 procuste – 129 191789 Dufour85 – 130 190860 FraPla – 131 188936 metamorris – 132 185613 capataz – 133 185243 marcram – 134 185019 Puccia – 135 184959 gigi2037 – 136 181906 Emistrac – 137 181777 popeye – 138 180037 mircozorzo – 139 179369 Castaman – 140 177489 rospus – 141 177303 OSM-mircozorzo_import – 142 176027 doktorpixel14 – 143 173578 trimoto – 144 172427 BogNik – 145 171617 SldrHartman – 146 171192 Patrick%20%Bous – 147 170347 gss272417 – 148 170282 Freiheit28 – 149 167360 corand – 150 166595 Terensky – 151 164870 Yiyi%20%(itwikipedia) – 152 164683 trekker48 – 153 162874 Simone%20%Saviolo – 154 162023 Cristian1989 – 155 161004 vezzo – 156 160216 Al%20%Bedo%20%Zero39 – 157 159788 Samuele%20%Battarra – 158 159243 Guido%20%Piazzi – 159 158873 Pathumthani – 160 158532 mikerpux – 161 158143 Gwilbor – 162 157604 carlobenini – 163 157005 UmbeP – 164 156884 csmggl – 165 155476 Alepoz – 166 155133 Decan – 167 154312 hotelsierra – 168 154170 Skombi – 169 153880 DnaX – 170 153149 merto – 171 151064 focus81 – 172 147773 Wave68 – 173 147389 Marco_T – 174 145891 satgps – 175 144500 remix_tj – 176 142696 slg – 177 142086 hobbie – 178 141970 effebi-sm – 179 141764 damjang – 180 140431 Diego%20%Cruciat – 181 135683 bvivi – 182 135345 Baliano – 183 134046 Anxe – 184 133018 gilbomorris – 185 130725 ilBiondo – 186 130069 Francesco_Loponte – 187 129813 Bigshot – 188 129457 Pyknite – 189 129174 Ataro – 190 129073 CatenaDiVoltri – 191 127890 farlokko – 192 127787 Luigi62 – 193 126734 flschm – 194 125972 Adriano%20%Ingallinera – 195 125776 totera – 196 124519 ALn_668 – 197 124390 Veneto_Civici_Import – 198 123901 WernerP – 199 123327 alessioz – 200 122145 frasty – 201 120691 softcake – 202 119419 spezzi64 – 203 118518 emmanuelecois – 204 117990 Marco_Fix – 205 117764 Flavio61 – 206 117604 Kiwi – 207 115936 matchman – 208 115677 pavelo – 209 114426 gmarzio – 210 112629 Sen%20%Atto – 211 110375 grfoto – 212 109726 bersanri – 213 107872 Taurus77 – 214 107541 peppo – 215 106867 Cristian%20%Testa – 216 106180 paolopoz – 217 106103 fmondini – 218 105839 maxiclimb – 219 103943 joecow – 220 103702 Davide%20%Prade – 221 103285 mux0815 – 222 102356 botdidier2020 – 223 102265 wiso_dbtopo_lodi – 224 101967 Gianluigi – 225 101051 luschi – 226 100004 pelatom – 227 99228 mikel17 – 228 98720 AlessandroAM – 229 98613 agnostico – 230 98174 mikelima – 231 97666 IA1979 – 232 97639 trianam – 233 96667 Udini – 234 96143 OpenGISData – 235 95547 Denisov21 – 236 95467 Berga – 237 95230 Jinx71 – 238 95079 StefanB_import – 239 94412 gnastyle – 240 94137 bmarco – 241 93333 Tomi – 242 92947 CouchPotato – 243 92791 lerks – 244 92506 snaut – 245 92408 Niccolo – 246 92036 bartmanxc – 247 91860 ReinerMeyer – 248 90910 g195 – 249 90336 marco%20%zudetic – 250 90303 lucadelu

If you want to install the osmium-tools on a Mac with OSX10.11 (El Capitan) or newer you’ll find that make install will not work due to System Integrity Protection which will not allow (even for the root user) to put files into some system directories and will stop with an error. While you could deactivate SIP completely by booting into protected mode and executing csrutil disable, I wouldn’t recommend you to do so and it is not needed: it should be sufficient to manually create a symlink to the binary after compilation in /usr/local/bin like this: ln -s /path-to-osmium-tool-source/build/osmium /usr/local/bin/osmium (using usr/local/bin doesn’t require the SIP to be deactivated).