[GIS] Converting KML to shapefile via ogr2ogr including all attributes

kmlogr2ogrshapefile

Here is the example KML file I am using:

<kml xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/kml/2.2">
<Document>
  <name>My Golf Course Example</name>
  <Placemark>
    <name>Club house3</name>
    <visibility>1</visibility>
    <phoneNumber>554545454</phoneNumber>
    <Point>
      <coordinates>-111.956,33.5043</coordinates>
    </Point>
  </Placemark>
</Document>
</kml>

I have named it input3.kml.

I put it, and ogr2ogr in the same folder, then I run this command:

ogr2ogr -f "ESRI Shapefile" output3.shp input3.kml

After that, I open up Quantum GIS and add vector layer, then add output3.shp.

Then I find the output3 layer, right click and open attribute table. How come only two attributes show up? (Name and Description)

Best Answer

I believe that the driver currently only works fully one way (i.e. writing TO kml). It currently expects a Description field in the KML data and uses that for its attribute, but truncates the name to 'Descriptio' because of the shapefile's DBF field naming limitation.

However, there is a version of the KML driver in development that will do what you want (so I guess it is not included in your version of ogr). BUT, you will need to re-format your KML using ExtendedData tags to wrap your... um... extended data.

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