[gdal-dev] Not writing PAM files

[Andrew C Aitchison]

On Mon, 3 Nov 2025, Javier Jimenez Shaw via gdal-dev wrote:

> Hi
>
> When I read some raster files (in particular thermal JPEG files), a side
> car file .aux.xml appears next to it.
>
> I would like to avoid the creation of this side car file, but I want to use
> any .aux.xml file if it is already there. Yes, I could imagine there is a
> performance impact if I read it several times, but I am going to read the
> file only once.
>
> The config option GDAL_PAM_ENABLED seems to be completely disabling PAM
> functionality:
> https://gdal.org/en/stable/user/configoptions.html#persistent-auxiliary-metadata-pam-options
> Reading the documentation, I would imagine that the PAM is completely
> disabled, not only the creation of the side car file while reading a raster.
>
> Is it posible to not create the .aux.xml, but use it if present?

I see that Even has just added a patch specifically for dji images.

in general, one other option might be to not give the running process 
write permission on the directory (perhaps with a read-only (re)mount) ?

-- 
Andrew C. Aitchison                      Kendal, UK
                    andrew at aitchison.me.uk