ogr2ogr.md

WFS via ogr2ogr/curl

Making WFS requests and dumping to file/postgres is fairly straightforward with existing command line tools:

• list all layers:

    $ ogrinfo WFS:http://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/geo/ows
  

• define a data request url:

    $ airports_url="https://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/geo/pub/ows?service=WFS&version=2.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=WHSE_IMAGERY_AND_BASE_MAPS.GSR_AIRPORTS_SVW&outputFormat=json&SRSNAME=epsg%3A3005"
  

• describe the data:

    $ ogrinfo -so $airports_url OGRGeoJSON
  

• making the request and dumping to file can be done different ways:

    $ ogr2ogr \
      -f GeoJSON \
      airports.geojson \
      $airports_url
  
    $ curl $airports_url > airports.geojson
  

• request a bigger dataset - gdal docs say paging is automatically supported for WFS 2.0.0:

    $ uwr="https://openmaps.gov.bc.ca/geo/pub/ows?service=WFS&version=2.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=WHSE_WILDLIFE_MANAGEMENT.WCP_UNGULATE_WINTER_RANGE_SP&outputFormat=json&SRSNAME=epsg%3A3005"
    $ curl $uwr > uwr.geojson
    $ ogrinfo uwr.geojson uwr -so
  
    INFO: Open of `uwr.geojson'
          using driver `GeoJSON' successful.
  
    Layer name: uwr
    Geometry: Unknown (any)
    Feature Count: 10000
  

  only 10k features... a client needs to request the total number of features and define the per-page requests

• load to postgres:

    $ ogr2ogr \
      -f PostgreSQL \
      PG:"host=localhost user=postgres dbname=postgis password=postgres" \
      -lco SCHEMA=whse_imagery_and_base_maps \
      -lco GEOMETRY_NAME=geom \
      -nln gsr_airports_svw \
      $airports_url
  

bcdata smooths the above processes by:

• providing Python and CLI interfaces for typical request options
• generating paged requests
• reducing server load by caching getcapabilites responses
• handling typical minor data issues (eg mixed geometry types)
• creating postgres tables that mirror the table schema as defined in BCGW (rather than using ogr default types)