[postgis-users] Question on datum names

[Peter N. Schweitzer]

On the web site from which I distribute spatial data, I provide shapefiles
with projection information as a .prj file.  I've drawn the contents of
these prj files from the srtext field of the spatial_ref_sys table.

A user has pointed out to me that this is inconvenient for people running
ArcGIS because ArcGIS expects to see different values as the name of the
coordinate system and the datum.  I have not seen a standard that specifies
these names.  Is there one?

It looks like I could change my .prj files to fit ArcGIS without much trouble.
But would this change break other applications?  Are there GIS applications
other than ArcGIS that rely strongly on these names?  How do others support
portability of projection information in downloadable data using the shapefile 
format?

Peter
-- 
Peter N. Schweitzer (MS 954, U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, VA 20192)
(703) 648-6533  FAX: (703) 648-6252  email: pschweitzer at usgs.gov
<http://geology.usgs.gov/peter/>