[Gdal-dev] AutoLoadDrivers question

[Frank Warmerdam]

ma jianglin wrote:
> 
> Hi Frank,
>  
>      Thank you for your reply! Yes, I want to know what these external 
> plugin drivers are useful for.
>      In function GDALAllRegister(), gdal tries to rember every image 
> format dirver. Why we need GDALDriverManage::AutoLoadDrivers() first?

Jianglin Ma,

External plugin drivers are used for three primary reasons:

  o Folks with their own proprietary drivers they don't want introduced
    directly into GDAL.

  o Folks who want to add optional drivers to existing GDAL builds without
    having to rebuild everything.

  o Folks with packaging systems where they want to distribute binaries
    with some optional drivers (such as MrSID, Oracle) that depend on
    external libraries that are either big, or may/maynot be found on the
    target system.

If you are building everything from source for use on your own system there
is no strong need to use plugins.

Best regards,
-- 
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I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
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