Thanks for the answer Jim. I understand that the shapefiles are lingua franca but to me that would imply that they should be used when exchange with other applications is needed - which is not always. But I had not realized that I might be constraining the set of available tools if I use SpatiaLite. Does this mean that if I have my date in SpatiaLite, many of the tools in the Processing toolbox would not be available to me?
Arni Árni Geirsson *Alta ehf* // +354 582 5000 // +354 897 9549 www.alta.is // Alta á Twitter <http://twitter.com/alta_ehf> // Alta á Facebook <http://www.facebook.com/pages/Alta/161795813838691?v=wall> On Tue, Jul 28, 2015 at 3:54 PM, James Keener <[email protected]> wrote: > More tools support it. Spatialite wasn't supported in esri until very > recently and other tools may not support anything but shape files. It's > become a lingual franca, and like English: it's terrible, but works well > enough. > > Jim > > On July 28, 2015 11:38:24 AM AST, "Árni Geirsson" <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hello >> I find it interesting that the ancient shapefile format is (or at least >> appears to be) the default file format for QGIS when SpatiaLite seems to be >> a much more capable format. I have been using mostly shapefiles and when >> using for example the tools under the vector menu, intermediate results are >> saved as shapefiles, leading to a big pile of files after a short session >> of vector processing. Now, I have discovered that by using the processing >> tools the intermediates can be temporary files (still shapefiles, just >> hidden away in a temporary folder). After saving a temporary file as a >> SpatiaLite file, I can enter field names longer than 10 characters but I >> can not add a text field that accommodates more than 255 characters. >> So my question is: Why is the shapefile format the default? >> >> I have also noticed that with 2.10 I can save in Geopackage format. Does >> that mean that support for this format has improved? >> >> Any insights are highly appreciated. >> >> Arni Geirsson >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> Qgis-user mailing list >> [email protected] >> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-user >> >> > -- > Sent from my Android device with K-9 Mail. Please excuse my brevity. >
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