[Xastir] Re: ESRI shapefile troubles

[russo at bogodyn.org]

On Wed, 6 Oct 2004, Curt, WE7U wrote:
>On Tue, 5 Oct 2004, Tom Russo wrote:
>
>> Attaching world.dbfawk.
>
>Should we include that with Xastir as well?

Well, there's the thing.

DBFAWK works in two ways: per-file dbfawk files that live with the
shapefile and have the same basename, and "matched signature" dbfawk
files that live in /usr/local/share/xastir/config and are chosen based
on the fields presentin any shapefile's associate dbf file.  The
danger of having too many simple matched-signature dbfawk files in
"config" is that a file might match the signature just by accident.
The DBF structures of converted tiger files and such are so elaborate
that random matches with unrelated shape files are less likely.

The world shapefile has a very simple DBF structure
(containing a "name" field, a "capital" field and a couple of others)
that could conceivably match unrelated shapefiles.  Putting this
dbfawk file in /usr/local/share/xastir/config *might* be OK, but I
hesitate to say so.  Since this particular dbfawk file is aimed at
describing how to render a single shapefile rather than a class of
them, it might be better to keep it as something that should just be
installed along with world.shp/world.shx/world.dbf as a per-file
dbfawk.  In a similar vein, I also have a simple dbfawk file for the
24kgrid USGS quadrangle shapefile that allows the names of the quads
to display at tight zoom levels, that I also use just as a per-file dbfawk.

It's not clear to me how to bundle up per-file dbfawks in a way that
cvs users can get hold of them easily, but have to install in their
own shapefile directories.

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://www.qsl.net/~km5vy/
  As a confirmed melancholic, I can testify that the best and maybe only 
  antidote for melancholia is action. However, like most melancholics, I 
  suffer also from sloth. -- Edward Abbey, American anarchist