[gdal-dev] How do I open vector files (e.g. shp) using GDAL

[Even Rouault]

Le Monday 20 July 2009 22:51:13 Smart, Gary, vous avez écrit :
> I understand that GDAL can open vector formats as if they were a
> dataset?
>

No, not exactly. GDAL is for the raster formats. OGR is for the vector 
formats. They have each their concepts, API and notions. See the OGR 
documentation : http://gdal.org/ogr/

>
>
> E.g. I read that it is possible to pass the GDALOpen either a single
> .shp file (in which case it treats it as if it only had one layer) or a
> directory containing multiple .shp files - which presumably it opens as
> multi layered?
>
>
>
> However, whenever I try to open vector files in this way (directory or
> file) I get...
>
>
>
> ERROR 4  - blah blah is not recognised as a supported file format"
>
>
>
> I am still new to all this (having only just conquered raster formats)
> so I suspect I am doing something pretty dumb.
>
> Perhaps someone can help?
>
>
>
> Gary