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

[Andreas Neumann]

Hi, 

A Swiss QGIS user asked me if/how FGDB for export/Save as can be
supported in QGIS - question specifically about the Windows distribution
of QGIS 3.x. Sometimes, QGIS users have to deliver results in fgdb
format, because their clients require it. 

A quick e-mail exchange with Even Roualt revealed the following: 

1. it is already supported if the proper "gdal-filegdb" packages are
installed. 

2. Currently, it can only be enabled in the OSGeo4W version by selecting
the "gdal-filegdb" package. The standalone installer does not include
this package. 

3. There are issues when wanting to "Save As" an additional layer into
an already existing FGDB. The problem is that fgdb files are actually
directories. And the current "Save As" dialog does not support selecting
"directories" to save into, only files. As a workaround, it works if one
copy/pastes the full path from the Windows file explorer into the "Save
As" dialog, but not when selecting a directory interactively. 

Here is some info on the third issue from Even: 

"I don't have the solution on top of my mind. According to
http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qfiledialog.html#FileMode-enum it seems that you
can
setup the selector to select file or directories, but not both.
We actually use the QFileDialog::getSaveFileName() API that probably
internally resolves to QFileDialog::AnyFile
Perhaps a more experience QT dev than me would have an idea.
Or an hack (but not sure we can really do better) would be to allow the
user
to select any file in the .gdb directory, and then automatically strips
out
the filename to just keep the directory name when we see this a file in
in a
.gdb directory" 

--------------- 

So here are my two questions: 

About issue 2: 

@Jürgen: can you include the necessary gdal-filegdb package also in the
standalone installer - or are there license problems? 

About issue 3: 

Does some dev have an idea or solution on how to more easily select a
folder instead of a file, for the case of writing an additional layer
into an already existing .fgdb folder? 

Thank you all for your ideas and the discussion, 

Andreas
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