Fwd: [mapserver-users] strange mapinfo layer

[Daniel Morissette]

This problem was posted about a month ago, but I thought I would post
the solution for the archives and other users that might run into the
same thing:

The issue was that when a TAB dataset had its attributes stored
in a .DBF file (instead of .DAT) then the shapefile driver was detecting
the dataset as "shapefile with no geometry" before the TAB driver.

This is fixed in the latest GDAL/OGR in CVS (not MapServer CVS but GDAL
CVS).

Daniel


Alex Rice wrote:
> 
> Another update in this OGR problem. When I use MapInfo Pro to
> open this Eslocs.TAB file, it opens it and renders it OK, with
> points. It thinks it's mapinfo TAB format. If I use Mapinfo
> translator to convert the table to Shapefile, I get
> EsLocs_point.shp and ogrinfo correctly reports that this file has
> point geometry in it, using the Shapefile driver.
> 
> Summary: something in this Eslocs.TAB file makes OGR think it's a
> Shapefile, not a Mapinfo file. And it loses the point geometry in
> the process.
> 
> Begin forwarded message:
> 
> > From: Alex Rice <alex_rice at arc.to>
> > Date: Thu Jul 25, 2002  06:03:35  PM US/Mountain
> > To: Daniel Morissette <morissette at dmsolutions.ca>
> > Cc: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> > Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] strange mapinfo layer
> > X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.482)
> >
> >
> > On Wednesday, July 24, 2002, at 05:23  PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
> >> Hummm... this is bad... even though a layer with no geometries is
> >> useless to MapServer, it should not crash on it... this as a bug
> >> that we
> >> should fix since objects with "NONE" geometries are a valid case
> >> coming
> >> from MapInfo and other GIS formats.
> >>
> >> FYI I filed this in the MapServer bugzilla at
> >>   http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=169
> >
> > Daniel, here is some more info. There is only one file I've found
> > that causes this behavior. It's supposed to be a Mapinfo .TAB
> > file & it IS supposed to have point geometry in it. However,
> > ogrinfo insists on opening it with the ESRI Shapefile driver! The
> > shapefile output from ogrinfo is:
> >
> > # ogrinfo Eslocs.TAB Eslocs | more
> > INFO: Open of `Eslocs.TAB'
> > using driver `ESRI Shapefile' successful.
> >
> > Layer name: Eslocs
> > Geometry: None
> > Feature Count: 83
> > Layer SRS WKT:
> > (unknown)
> > NAME: String (40.0)
> > ID: Integer (11.0)
> > ADDRESS: String (40.0)
> > PHONE: String (10.0)
> > MAPADD: String (40.0)
> > ...
> >
> > Let me know if you want a copy of these files Eslocs.*. Now I'm
> > going to try opening it in Mapinfo Pro and seeing if it thinks
> > it's a TAB file or something else.
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Alex Rice, Software Developer
> > Architectural Research Consultants, Inc.
> > alex_rice at arc.to
> > alrice at swcp.com
> >
> >