[QGIS-Developer] Geopackage FID columns: i HATE them!!!!

[Matthias Kuhn]

Hi Nyall,

Similar thoughts here.

Not sure what a format wins from forcing people into using an integer 
based primary key column.

I think ultimately it is the data producer's responsibility to assign 
unique and sensible identifiers with meaningful names (aka primary keys) 
to data.

All the fid_1, fid_2 etc columns after processing, all the troubles with 
shifted columns because field indexes changed, all the extra effort to 
clean up with these generated clutter ids ... So much wasted time that 
no one will ever give us back.

If it was for me, may it rest in peace.

Matthias


On 3/19/20 7:03 AM, Nyall Dawson wrote:
> Hi list,
>
> Just wondering what everyone's thoughts are about geopackage FID
> columns. Personally, I find them an absolute nightmare to deal with,
> resulting in annoying (and dangerous) issues when trying to save
> geopackage edits, such as
> - field type issues: converting certain formats to geopackage fails,
> because existing fields with name "fid" are of an incompatible type
> with geopackage. Solution: manually uncheck the "fid" field from the
> "save as" dialog.
> - unique constraint violations: we've mostly fixed this in processing,
> but it's still unfortunately really common to get failures when saving
> edits to geopackage because some operation has resulted in duplicate
> fids. This can be a nightmare to fix, if it's even possible to do so.
>
> I personally HATE HATE HATE these columns, and would rather I never
> saw them ever again. Does anyone else feel the same? If so, could we
> potentially just permanently hide these columns from QGIS and avoid
> all these dangerous issues for users?
>
> Nyall
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