GeoJSON to OGR2OGR Conversion – Changing Layer Names

geojsonogr2ogr

I am converting GeoJSON files to other formats (including KML) using ogr2ogr.

As you may know, there is no field in a GeoJSON file to specify the name of the layer, causing every conversion to have the name OGRGeoJSON. For example the following GeoJSON file:

{ "type": "FeatureCollection",
  "features": [
    { "type": "Feature",
      "geometry": {"type": "Point", "coordinates": [102.0, 0.5]},
      "properties": {"prop0": "value0"}
      }
     ]
   }

is converted as follows in KML:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
<Document><Folder><name>OGRGeoJSON</name>
<Schema name="OGRGeoJSON" id="OGRGeoJSON">
    <SimpleField name="Name" type="string"></SimpleField>
    <SimpleField name="Description" type="string"></SimpleField>
    <SimpleField name="prop0" type="string"></SimpleField>
</Schema>
  <Placemark>
    <ExtendedData><SchemaData schemaUrl="#OGRGeoJSON">
        <SimpleData name="prop0">value0</SimpleData>
    </SchemaData></ExtendedData>
      <Point><coordinates>102.0,0.5</coordinates></Point>
  </Placemark>
</Folder></Document></kml>

I've read this blog post from 2007 explaining why this occurs and I know that GeoJSON does not have the concept of layer name in its specifications.

I would like to know if there is a simple way to rename the layer on the fly using OGR, or if I should generate the output with ogr2ogr and programmatically change the output layer name, depending on the output file format with another program since, as far as I know, the OGR API does not have a function to rename the layer.

Best Answer

In the current ogr2ogr documentation it outlines the -nln property, which allows for specifying an alternate layer name. I don't know how new this is so you may need to download a new version, but it does work. 

ogr2ogr -f KML some_output.kml example.geojson -nln SOMENAME

Using the above command on your example geojson produced the following results:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
<Document><Folder><name>SOMENAME</name>
<Schema name="SOMENAME" id="SOMENAME">
    <SimpleField name="Name" type="string"></SimpleField>
    <SimpleField name="Description" type="string"></SimpleField>
    <SimpleField name="prop0" type="string"></SimpleField>
</Schema>
  <Placemark>
    <ExtendedData><SchemaData schemaUrl="#SOMENAME">
        <SimpleData name="prop0">value0</SimpleData>
    </SchemaData></ExtendedData>
      <Point><coordinates>102.0,0.5</coordinates></Point>
  </Placemark>
</Folder></Document></kml>

Good luck!

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