[gdal-dev] Formalizing GDAL "file name" syntax in an RFC?

[Even Rouault]

> I agree that there is an untidy legacy. And it's probably not worth 
> formalizing the marginal filenames and connection strings. How about 
> an RFC and formal syntax only for hierarchical datasets then? It seems 
> like this is the direction the industry is growing.
Hiearchical gridded datasets are well covered by the multidimensional 
API, which has facilities like 
GDALGroupOpenMDArrayFromFullname(hRootGroup, 
"/group/subgroup/.../array_name") . What you provide to GDALOpen() when 
using the API is the plain filename  (or ZARR:{filename} since it is 
sometimes hard for the Zarr driver to recognize datasets otherwise)
>
> Yes, I think a formal syntax for /vsi filenames would be useful. It's 
> almost done already, right?

There's some differences among the /vsi file systems how to provide options

/vsisubfile/<offset>,<filename>

/vsisubfile/<offset>_<size>,<filename>

/vsizip/<filename.zip>/<subpath>

/vsizip/{<container_without_zip_extension>}/<subpath>   (the external { 
} are real characters, so an example of this is for example 
/vsizip/{my.apk}/file.bin )

/vsicurl?<option1>=<val1>&url=<url>

I've a PR sitting at https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/8351 to propose 
/vsicached?<option1>=<val1>&file=<filename>

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