[gdal-dev] converting WideString to String in ogr2ogr

[Russell McOrmond]

   I'm trying to convert some data in ArcSDE that has WideStrings to an 
ESRI Shapefile.  The Data set has English and French text strings which 
are Unicode (WideString) encoded.   When I tried to convert:

ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2.shp 
"SDE:database,port:1234,sde,username,password,SOIL_XDATA.PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2"
ERROR 6: Can't create fields of type WideString on shapefile layers.

ERROR 6: Can't create fields of type WideString on shapefile layers.

ERROR 6: Can't create fields of type WideString on shapefile layers.


   The string fields are simply not created in the ESRI shapefile.  Is 
there a way to tell ogr2ogr to transcode these wide strings to whatever 
character encoding ESRI Shapefiles use for strings?


Note: I tried to do an export using ArcCatalog and ended up with a 
shapefile that when rendered as an image looks visually different.  I was 
told that ogr2ogr would give me a more accurate translation.  I note there 
is additional information such as SHAPE_AREA and SHAPE_LEN which the 
ArcCatalog export gave but ogr2ogr didn't.  Here is the ogrinfo first for 
the export and then the ogr2ogr:


$ ogrinfo -al -so soil_xapp/SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2.shp
INFO: Open of `soil_xapp/SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2.shp'
       using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.

Layer name: SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2
Geometry: Polygon
Feature Count: 13583
Extent: (-2341022.416100, -719755.272200) - (3009725.435700, 
3833267.122200)
Layer SRS WKT:
PROJCS["EPSG_42304_LCC",
     GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983",
         DATUM["North_American_Datum_1983",
             SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137.0,298.257222101]],
         PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],
         UNIT["Degree",0.0174532925199433]],
     PROJECTION["Lambert_Conformal_Conic_2SP"],
     PARAMETER["False_Easting",0.0],
     PARAMETER["False_Northing",0.0],
     PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",-95.0],
     PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_1",49.0],
     PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_2",77.0],
     PARAMETER["Latitude_Of_Origin",49.0],
     UNIT["Meter",1.0]]
SLC_SOIL_O: String (10.0)
SOIL_ORDER: String (30.0)
SOIL_ORD_1: String (30.0)
SOIL_ORD_2: Integer (5.0)
SHAPE_AREA: Real (19.11)
SHAPE_LEN: Real (19.11)


$ ogrinfo -al -so 
soil_xapp_ogr/SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2.shp
INFO: Open of `soil_xapp_ogr/SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2.shp'
       using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.

Layer name: SOIL_XDATA_PED_CA_SLC_SOIL_ORDER_15M_R2
Geometry: Polygon
Feature Count: 13583
Extent: (-2341022.416100, -719755.272200) - (3009725.435700, 
3833267.122200)
Layer SRS WKT:
PROJCS["EPSG_42304_LCC",
     GEOGCS["GCS_North_American_1983",
         DATUM["North_American_Datum_1983",
             SPHEROID["GRS_1980",6378137.0,298.257222101]],
         PRIMEM["Greenwich",0.0],
         UNIT["Degree",0.017453292519943295]],
     PROJECTION["Lambert_Conformal_Conic_2SP"],
     PARAMETER["False_Easting",0.0],
     PARAMETER["False_Northing",0.0],
     PARAMETER["Central_Meridian",-95.0],
     PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_1",49.0],
     PARAMETER["Standard_Parallel_2",77.0],
     PARAMETER["Latitude_Of_Origin",49.0],
     UNIT["Meter",1.0]]
OBJECTID: Integer (10.0)
SOIL_ORDER: Integer (5.0)


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