[Gdal-dev] What about blob?

[Frank Warmerdam]

On Thu, 3 Feb 2005 18:56:57 +0000 (UTC), John Nipper <jnipper at bhinc.com> wrote:
> First off I would like to say "Thanks Frank"!  We use GDAL, OGR, FME, and
> recently PostGIS.  We have lots of custom apps for automating processes, and I
> really dig the GDAL and OGR APIs.
> 
> I would like to store/retrieve blobs in PostGIS as I am processing features
> including geometries.  I could add blobs to the PG driver and muck up the ogr
> code to make it work by adding blob functions to OGRFeature.  But it seems to
> me that it would be too drastic, and I repatching code each version seems to
> be bad practice.  Anyway, at this point I am just searching for ideas for the
> best way to accomplish this task.

John,

There are typedefs for a binary field type (OFTBinary), but in practice
I haven't implemented support for this.  I think the thing to do would be
to go through the OGRFeature and related classes and implement binary
properly.

Of course, most formats won't know what to do if you try to write a binary
field.  In the past, for this reason, I have often just converted binary fields
into hex encoded strings. 

If you want binary support, and are willing to do some of the work related
to it, please submit a bugzilla report on the issue and we can work together
on it.  I don't mind providing you with CVS access. 

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent