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

[Sean Gillies]

Hi Alessandro,

On Fri, Sep 15, 2023 at 8:31 AM ElPaso <elpaso at itopen.it> wrote:

> Il 14/09/23 17:14, Sean Gillies ha scritto:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > In https://github.com/OSGeo/gdal/pull/8155#issuecomment-1704923263 I
> > think I see (for the first time?) the beginning of a specification of
> > the syntax for GDAL "file names". I think it would be helpful if there
> > was an RFC for this.
> >
> > I'm sure a lot of applications construct GDAL file names without much
> > understanding of what's correct or incorrect. A formal spec could help
> > make it more likely that anyone can construct a valid filename on the
> > first try.
> >
> > A stretch goal for the RFC could be to come up with a syntax that is
> > sufficiently general that authors of new format drivers don't have to
> > create their own new idiosyncratic file names.
> >
>
> Hi Sean,
>
>
> I totally agree that it would be useful to have a formally defined
> syntax to describe data sources, we have the same problem with QGIS
> QgsDataSourceUri and we are treating the URIs as a private
> implementation detail, but in QGIS we have a GUI to set the data source
> strings that partially mitigatest the issue.
>
>
> We discussed a few times what it could be the best format to encode a
> data source and URL encoding is probably a good candidate because it's
> well known and well supported by libraries.
>
>
> Maybe something like:
>
>
> <driver_name>://<path|connection>/<arguments ...>
>
> mssql://username:password@hostname:port/?table=table_name&arg1=arg1...
>
> gpkg:///path/to.gpkg?table=table_name&arg1=arg1...
>
> postgis://username:password@hostname:port/?table=table_name&arg1=arg1...
>
> shapefile:///path/to.shp/?arg1=arg1...
>

Yes, something like this is my dream :) I started working on such a
proposal a while back and then was derailed by a job change. I might try to
dust it off and start writing on it again.

I think the "vrt://" URI scheme was a mistake, though, and that we
shouldn't extend it to dozens of other formats. At least not without
consulting with other software communities. Ideally these schemes would be
universal across the internet.

-- 
Sean Gillies
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