[gdal-dev] Handling Ordnance Survey Change Only Updates

[Peter Halls]

Jez,

   I rather doubt you could use ogr2ogr to effect a MasterMap update, I'm 
afraid. I do not believe it to be designed to take two inputs and, 
effectively, merge them to produce the output.

   Yes, it is true that you can edit shapefiles to the extent that records 
can be marked for deletion and new records added. However, you need logic 
to identify the records to be updated - which, so far as I am aware, does 
not exist within ogr2ogr, which is a data conversion tool. There have been 
other postings regarding updating bounds and indeces, which can all be 
wored around.

    Because I am paranoid, I would not wish to do an in situ update of my 
base reference data, such as MasterMap, without preserving the previous 
version. As I do not believe the logic to exist to update a Mastermap 
dataset from the Changes GML using GDAL, you will need to create this. Thus 
the most sensible approach is to take the two inputs, existing shapefile 
and GML updates, apply the updates and write out a new, updated shapefile. 
You can, of course, delete or archive the old one once your QA processes 
have been run and you are confident with the result.

Best wishes,

Peter

On Aug 17 2010, Jez Walters wrote:

>Peter,
>
>
> I may be misinterpreting it, but the GDAL documentation 
> (http://www.gdal.org/ogr/drv_shapefile.html) suggests that shapefiles CAN 
> be edited:
>
> "The OGR shapefile driver supports rewriting existing shapes in a 
> shapefile as well as deleting shapes. Deleted shapes are marked for 
> deletion in the .dbf file, and then ignored by OGR. To actually remove 
> them permanently (resulting in renumbering of FIDs) invoke the SQL 
> 'REPACK <tablename>' via the datasource ExecuteSQL() method."
>
> I was rather hoping this would be implemented via ogr2ogr - can you 
> confirm I'm right that ogr2ogr does NOT support this?
> 
>
>Warm regards,
>
>
>Jez
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: pjh1 at york.ac.uk [mailto:pjh1 at york.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Peter Halls
>Sent: Tuesday 17 August 2010 08:36
>To: Jez Walters
>Cc: gdal-dev at lists.osgeo.org
>Subject: Re: [gdal-dev] Handling Ordnance Survey Change Only Updates
>
>Jez,
>
>   I would be surprised if GDAL can handle OSGB MasterMap change-only 
> updates automatically. The process defined by OS is to locate and replace 
> the records concerned. Because the update may change the geometry of a 
> record, I do not believe this can be done on a shapefile in situ. Instead 
> the procedure would be to input the shapefile sequentially until a record 
> to be changed is liocated, outputing the input to a new shapefile and 
> substituting the change record for the input as appropriate, gaining a 
> new shapefile. On completion, the new shapefile will have the correct 
> spatial index and bounds. Indeed, it is probably most sensible to adopt 
> this approach to such updates regardless of the output format, as this is 
> 'safe' against update problems - which, in theory, could result from a 
> problematic GML file and permits easy reversion.
>
>Best wishes,
>
>Peter
>
>On Aug 16 2010, Jez Walters wrote:
>
>>
>>Hello fellow GDAL users!
>>
>>
>>I need to handle Change Only Updates (COU) for the UK Ordnance Survey
>>MasterMap Topography Layer, and I was wondering how to approach this.
>>
>> Both the initial and COU data are supplied as GML, and I am currently 
>> converting the initial data to ESRI shapefiles using ogr2ogr. However, 
>> the ogr2ogr "-update" option won't update the shapefiles using the COU 
>> data - unless I'm missing something?
>>
>>I currently see two ways of overcoming this:
>>
>> 1. Use the COU data to update the initial GML data, and then re-convert 
>> the merged data to ESRI shapefiles 2. Use the COU data to directly 
>> update the ESRI shapefiles
>>
>> Obviously the second approach is more efficient, but how difficult is it 
>> to create, update and delete features using the GDAL python library?
>>
>>A few pointers for how to achieve this would be most welcome!  :-)
>>
>>
>>Warm regards,
>>
>>
>>Jez
>>
>
>

-- 
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Peter Halls, University of York GIS Advisor
Snail Mail: Computing Service, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, England
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