[postgis-users] About ESRI Shapefile ...
Stephen Woodbridge
woodbri at swoodbridge.com
Wed Apr 19 07:57:54 PDT 2006
Thomas Chabaud wrote:
> Sorry if it's a dumb question, but I wonder why there is no
> "AsESRIShapefileGeometry(geometry_column)" and
> "WKTFromESRIShapefile(esri_shapefile_geometry)" that could work like
> AsText() or GeometryFromText() functions.
>
> Is it difficult to do ?
>
> I think it could be very useful.
Hi Thomas,
1) A shapefile is not a file it is a set of files so what would you
expect to get from "AsESRIShapefileGeometry(geometry_column)"
2) A geometry_column can contain multiple geometry type, and collection
which are not compatible with the ESRI Shapefile spec. What would you
want to happen in this case?
3) Lets assume we had the function as you requested it. What would you
do with it? How would you use the result?
In general, I think that it is highly unlikely that there is any
interest in add this function because of the compatibility, and
restrictions, and the fact that I think you find that most people don't
think it would be all that useful given that alternatives exist and work
fine. But you may see a need that I don't see, and I am open to your
ideas on how you would use such a feature.
Regarding difficulty, you might look at the source of pqsql2shp, and
look at what it would take to wrap that in a stored procedure.
-Steve W.
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