[QGIS-Developer] Question on FGDB support for "Save As" / "Export"

[Nyall Dawson]

On Thu, 2 Aug 2018 at 18:21, Andreas Neumann <a.neumann at carto.net> wrote:
> However - I wonder if there would be a way to support both drivers? The Open Source driver as default for reading. And the FGDB driver for writing?

That's a great idea!

In the QGIS world we'd have to compromise a bit here and not allow
editing of existing layers (as you'd normally get with the closed
driver). I.e. we'd only use it when writing an existing layer out to a
copy on disk (e.g. via right click menu on a vector layer). But still,
allowing layers to be saved as a geodatabase would be a step forward.

I'm not sure how this change would need to be made though. At the
moment if you install the closed driver in osgeo4w it's always used,
for both reading and writing layers. Even/Jürgen is this an osgeo4w
thing or a GDAL thing? Is it possible to have two drivers installed
for the one format and always read using the closed driver?

Another complication is that we'd still need a way for users to opt in
to using the closed driver for reading - as that may sometimes be
required too... So not a straightforward change, but still one that
I'd support!

Nyall