| 06:15:02 | mdev: | does anyone know about case sensitivity in naming SHAPE files in the Map file? And do you know if the filename of shape files is linked to anything or am I free to change it to whatever? |
| 06:17:08 | mdev: | nvmd, I guess I answered the question myself by renaming an all upercase file to lower and shorter name... what's strange is that the long upper case file name was failing which is why i made it lower and short |
| 06:23:41 | jmckenna: | case sensitivity is an issue for deploying on Unix ( on windows it is not an issue ) |
| 06:24:10 | mdev: | ah, ok... this is on BSD |
| 06:24:23 | jmckenna: | but generally you can name it whatever you want, as long as you refer to them the same way in mapfile |
| 06:24:31 | mdev: | ok, great |
| 06:24:42 | jmckenna: | generally though, i recommend lowercase and no spaces or special chars |
| 06:24:45 | jmckenna: | cool |
| 06:24:45 | mdev: | I was afraid to change name of file at first in case the name of layers was same as file name |
| 06:25:10 | mdev: | yeah, that's why I was pissed off that the file I donwloaded was all upercase and a lot of characters cause it was failing |
| 06:25:19 | jmckenna: | no you can change to whatever you want...but i would follow those recommendations |
| 06:25:28 | mdev: | yup, sure thing |
| 06:25:28 | mdev: | thanks |
| 06:25:34 | jmckenna: | no problem |
| 06:28:36 | mdev: | while we're on the topic of renaming stuff... do you know if I can edit a dbf file in a spreadsheet program and just save changes? |
| 06:28:53 | mdev: | or does it have to be created with special software? |
| 06:29:00 | mdev: | I wanted to add another column of country names in a second language to use as alternate labels when map is selected in that language |
| 06:29:02 | strk: | mdev: import in postgis, edit, export to shapefile ? |
| 06:29:11 | mdev: | I don't have postgis and never worked with it |
| 06:29:13 | strk: | but there are also free dbf editors afair |
| 06:29:29 | mdev: | but what about in openoffice? I can open the DBF file, but will it be ok if I edit it? |
| 06:29:41 | mdev: | or do the other shapefiles have to be updated for the changes as well? |
| 06:29:46 | strk: | should be, as long as you don't reorder the records |
| 06:29:56 | strk: | make a backup before trying |
| 06:30:07 | mdev: | sure, just at the messing around stage right now |
| 06:30:39 | mdev: | how does the rest of the shape know there's an additional column in the dbf? does it use the first row of DBF as the field identifier? |
| 06:32:57 | nhv: | see http://shapelib.maptools.org/dl/shapefile.pdf and http://www.clicketyclick.dk/databases/xbase/format/ |
| 06:33:09 | sigabrt: | Title: Xbase File Format Description ( at www.clicketyclick.dk ) |
| 06:34:38 | mdev: | ok, just editing the dbf file didn't work |
| 06:34:44 | mdev: | let me look at those links |
| 06:40:57 | mdev: | editing in excel didn't work, but editing in OpenOffice Database did, problem solved ( I think ) thanks |