FS#56732 - [gdal] doesn't properly support KML file format

Attached to Project: Community Packages
Opened by Fernando L. Canizo (flc) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 13:57 GMT
Last edited by Jaroslav Lichtblau (Dragonlord) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 20:24 GMT
Task Type Feature Request
Category Packages
Status Closed
Assigned To Jaroslav Lichtblau (Dragonlord)
Architecture All
Severity Medium
Priority Normal
Reported Version
Due in Version Undecided
Due Date Undecided
Percent Complete 100%
Votes 0
Private No

Details

Description: package community/gdal doesn't come compiled with LIBKML, wich provides full support to manage KML file format

The KML file format is used primarily by the Google Earth application, but also by many other software from the GIS world.

This bug refers to the current GDAL programs (`ogrinfo` and `ogr2ogr` in particular, but probably others from the suite too) disability to read or import attribute table from a KML file.

The attribute table contains important information associated with the layer and the subjects you try to present. Without it, your map is just a bunch of colorful shapes without any meaning whatsoever.

According to the resolution of the bug reported upstream: https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/ticket/7179#comment:5 , which I'll paste below, this is not a GDAL bug, but an Archlinux one. Bug resolution states:

"Closing as not a GDAL bug. This is an issue with the provider of the GDAL binary not shipping it with LIBKML"

Before coming here, before reporting upstream, I did a quick chat on IRC at #archlinux, and they told me reasons like: "package aur/libkml doesn't have enough votes" or "Upstream doesn't require it", but the true is GDAL's KML internal module doesn't handle one of the most important parts of a KML file, which is the associated data for the points, lines or polygons in the map.

This bug reports intention is to have `libkml` as a community package instead of an AUR one and to make it a hard dependency for GDAL, so that way programs come fully prepared to work with KML files.

I hope the conclusion from the upstream ticket is enough requirement to accept my proposal.


Additional info:
* package version: community/gdal 2.2.3-1


Steps to reproduce: please refer to upstream bug report at https://trac.osgeo.org/gdal/ticket/7179#comment:4
This task depends upon

Closed by  Jaroslav Lichtblau (Dragonlord)
Friday, 15 December 2017, 20:24 GMT
Reason for closing:  Won't implement
Additional comments about closing:  See my comment.
Comment by Eli Schwartz (eschwartz) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 16:14 GMT
  • Field changed: Task Type (Bug Report → Feature Request)
  • Field changed: Status (Unconfirmed → Assigned)
  • Field changed: Severity (High → Medium)
  • Task assigned to Jaroslav Lichtblau (Dragonlord)
It's certainly a reasonable thing to ask for, regardless of whether libkml is in the repos. If adding support for this in gdal is something the maintainer wishes to do, and that requires libkml, then libkml would get a free ticket into the community repos regardless of votes.
Comment by Fernando L. Canizo (flc) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 18:09 GMT
I'd like to stress that this is not a feature request. It's not that using this library then KML files would be more awesome or something like that, the real point is that **without** it **you cannot work with KML** files. I still believe it should be considered a bug, but you know the system better as this is my first bug report on Archlinux.

However please keep in mind we loose the ability to work with the information that kind of file brings in.
Comment by Doug Newgard (Scimmia) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 19:02 GMT
It is, without a doubt, a feature request. Bugs are for things that should work but don't.
Comment by Eli Schwartz (eschwartz) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 19:25 GMT
> without it you cannot work with kml files

*looks, verifies that I reassigned this as a feature request to add support for kml files*
Comment by Jaroslav Lichtblau (Dragonlord) - Friday, 15 December 2017, 20:23 GMT
Hi Fernando.
As written in my email to you 3 days ago, the libkml package is in AUR (since 2010-10-27 and has 7 votes) as of now. I'm not really interested in bringing it into the [community] repository. But until this happens, I don't intend to put it as a dependency of gdal. Still as a work around, creating an AUR 'gdal-kml' package adding the dependency is possible.

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