[Qgis-developer] Native MS SQL 2008 Driver for QGIS

Marco Hugentobler marco.hugentobler at sourcepole.ch
Mon Sep 5 08:34:12 EDT 2011


Hi Nathan

I also think that a native QGIS provider (subclass of QgsVectorDataProvider) 
for MS SQL 2008 would be a great thing. The reason to go for a native driver 
(and not via OGR) are the same as with PostGIS:

- performance is better (less conversion)
- even with the  OGR driver, it needs work to be done for a good QGIS 
integration. E.g. QGIS is strict to have only one shapetype in a layer and it 
requires a unique identifiere for a feature (also in a db view)

Btw. a native oracle spatial provider would also be nice to have. Oracle 
spatial is (unfortunately) quite common here.

Regards,
Marco



Am Montag, 5. September 2011, 14.05:00 schrieb Nathan Woodrow:
> Hi all,
> 
> There has been some interest from a company here in Australia to develop a
> MS SQL driver/provider for QGIS. IMO this is a good move as most
> local governments, where I work and where I push my QGIS agenda, pretty
> much all use MS SQL 2008 spatial for storing spatial data.  Having a
> driver for MS SQL would make QGIS more attractive to these and many more
> Windows users.
> 
> The thing I wanted to find out was if implementing a native/provider MS SQL
> Driver in QGIS would be the correct way to go about this.  At current there
> is already a MS SQL driver for OGR, which can be used to open layer from
> the database in QGIS using the Python console.  However there is no UI and
> while OGR is fine with opening database connections it seems strange to
> use OGR for some database engines but not others.
> 
> My thoughts were
> 
> Implement a native QGIS driver for MS SQL inheriting from
> QgsVectorDataProvider
> 
>    - Less program layers as your not going though OGR then wrapping it in
>    the QgsFeature class (should be faster).
>    - Implement QBrowser support like what Giuseppe has done with his
>    improvements to the postgis provider.
>    - Closer control over the code eg faster bug fixing and features. Don't
>    need to wait for OGR packages to be updated.
> 
> I guess something that came to mind is that we have a native provider for
> PostGIS but yet OGR supports it.
> 
> In my mind a native driver is the way to go as we can integrate it more
> tightly into the QGIS code base and not rely on an other library for bug
> fixes and updates.
> 
> What are other peoples thoughts?
> 
> - NathanW


-- 
Dr. Marco Hugentobler
Sourcepole -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
Churerstrasse 22, CH-8808 Pfäffikon SZ, Switzerland
marco.hugentobler at sourcepole.ch http://www.sourcepole.ch
Technical Advisor QGIS Project Steering Committee


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