Give an EPG merge an explicit source priority

Define authority before the conflict

A merge needs a rule for conflicting schedule information, not just a way to append XML rows. Write down the accepted channel identity, time interval and source priority before importing multiple feeds. The XMLTV DTD supplies fields, not a universal ranking algorithm.

In an invented merge, source A controls the schedule while source B supplies translated descriptions. If B has an older start time, richer prose should not silently make its timing authoritative. Decide separately which fields can enrich A's accepted row.

Retain the evidence of each choice

Keep source identity, revision or fetch time and the selected value's provenance. A single merged row without that record makes later corrections difficult to explain. The time a feed was fetched is not automatically the time its schedule was revised.

Treat matching as a separate decision from priority. Similar titles on the same day can describe repeats or different episodes. If a reliable identifier is missing, use a bounded matching rule and send ambiguous cases for review rather than forcing a merge.

Measure the result by channel and interval

Review changed programme times, unresolved matches, gaps and overlaps across the covered interval. A lower row count is not automatically a cleaner schedule, and an increased description count does not establish schedule accuracy.

Keep the previous accepted merge for rollback. When priority changes, preview the affected records before publishing. This is a proposed data-governance workflow for owned feeds, not an assertion that one public listing source is better than another.

Related reading

• Define an XMLTV import contract beyond XML validity
• Keep guide language metadata separate from media tracks

Questions answered

Sources & further reading

Official references for the subjects discussed. Service terms and device software can change.

• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/XMLTV/xmltv/master/xmltv.dtd