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/* $Id: faq.dox 10108 2006-10-17 22:30:22Z mloskot $ */
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/*!
\page faq GDAL FAQ

<ol>
<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>What's this OGR Stuff?</b>
<p>The gdal/ogr tree holds source for a vector IO library inspired by
OpenGIS Simple Features.  In theory it is separate from GDAL, but currently
they reside in the same source tree and are somewhat entangled.  More
information can be found at
<a href="http://ogr.maptools.org/">http://ogr.maptools.org</a>.  It is 
my plan to properly fold OGR into GDAL properly at some point
in the future.  Then GDAL will be a raster and vector library. </p>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->
<li> <b>How do I add support for a new format?</b>
<p>To some extent this is now covered by the
<a href="gdal_drivertut.html">GDAL Driver Implementation Tutorial</a>.</p>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->
<li> <b>Can I get a MS Visual Studio Project file for GDAL?</b>
<p>The GDAL developers find it more convenient to build with makefiles 
and the Visual Studio NMAKE utility.  Maintaining a parallel set of project
files for GDAL is too much work, so there are no project files directly 
available from the maintainers.  Occasionally other users do prepare such 
project files, and you may be able to get them by asking on the gdal-dev list.
However, I would strongly suggest you just use the NMAKE based build system.
With debugging enabled you can still debug into GDAL with Visual Studio.</p>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->
<li> <b>Can I build GDAL with MS Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition?</b>
<p>
Yes, you can. It's also possible to use GDAL libraries in applications developed using <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/">MS Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition</a>.

<ul>
<li><p>Download and install Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition. Follow instructions presented on this website:</p><p>http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/download/</p></li>

<li><p>Download and install Microsoft Platform SDK</p>. Also, follow these instructions carefully without omitting any of steps presented there:</p><p>http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/usingpsdk/</p></li>

<li>Add following two paths to <em>Include files</em> in the Visual C++ IDE settings. Do it the same way as presented in <a href="http://msdn.microsoft.com/vstudio/express/visualc/usingpsdk/">Step 3</a> from the website above.

<pre>
C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Platform SDK\\Include\\atl
C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Platform SDK\\Include\\mfc
</pre>
</li>

<li>Since you will build GDAL from command line using nmake tool, you also need to set or update <em>INCLUDE</em> and <em>LIB</em> environment variables manually. You can do it in two ways:

<ol>
<li>using the System applet available in the Control Panel</li>
<li>by editing vsvars32.bat script located in <pre>C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\Common7\\Tools\\vsvars32.bat</pre></li>
</ol>

These variables should have following values assigned:

<pre>
INCLUDE=C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\VC\\Include;
        C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Platform SDK\\Include;
        C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Platform SDK\\Include\\mfc;
        C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Platform SDK\\Include\\atl;%INCLUDE%
</pre>

<pre>
LIB=C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\VC\\Lib;
    C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\SDK\\v2.0\\lib;
    C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Platform SDK\\lib;%LIB%
</pre>

<strong>NOTE:</strong> If you have edited system-wide <em>INCLUDE</em> and <em>LIB</em> variables, using <em>System</em> applet, every Console (cmd.exe) will have it properly set. But if you have edited them through <em>vsvars32.bat</em> script, you will need to run this script in the Console before every compilation.
</li>

<li><p>Patch atlwin.h header</p>
<p>At line 1725 add <em>int i;</em> declaration, so it looks as follows:</p>
<pre>
---------------------------------------------------------------
BOOL SetChainEntry(DWORD dwChainID, CMessageMap* pObject, DWORD dwMsgMapID = 0)
{
    int i;
    // first search for an existing entry

    for(i = 0; i < m_aChainEntry.GetSize(); i++)
---------------------------------------------------------------
</pre>
</li>

<li><p>Patch atlbase.h header</p>
<p>At line 287, comment AllocStdCallThunk and FreeStdCallThunk functions and add macros replacements:</p>
<pre>
---------------------------------------------------------------
/***************************************************
PVOID __stdcall __AllocStdCallThunk(VOID);
VOID __stdcall __FreeStdCallThunk(PVOID);

#define AllocStdCallThunk() __AllocStdCallThunk()
#define FreeStdCallThunk(p) __FreeStdCallThunk(p)

#pragma comment(lib, "atlthunk.lib")
***************************************************/

/* NEW MACROS */
#define AllocStdCallThunk() HeapAlloc(GetProcessHeap(),0,sizeof(_stdcallthunk))
#define FreeStdCallThunk(p) HeapFree(GetProcessHeap(), 0, p)
---------------------------------------------------------------
</pre>
</li>

<li><p>Building GDAL</p>
    <ul>
    <li>Open console windows (Start -&gt; Run -&gt; cmd.exe -&gt; OK)</li>

    <li>If you have edited vsvars32.bat script, you need to run it using full path:
    <pre>
C:\\> "C:\\Program Files\\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\\Common7\\Tools\\vsvars32.bat"
Setting environment for using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 x86 tools
    </pre></li>

    <li>Go do GDAL sources root directory, for example:
    <pre>
C:\\> cd work\\gdal
    </pre></li>

    <li>Run nmake to compile
    <pre>
C:\\work\\gdal> nmake /f makefile.vc
    </pre></li>
    
    <li>If no errors occur, after a few minutes you should see GDAL libraries in <em>C:\\work\\gdal</em>.</li>
    </ul>
</li>

</ul>

Now, you can use these libraries in your applications developed using Visual C++ 2005 Express Edition.
</p>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->
<li> <b>Can I build GDAL with Cygwin or MingW?</b>
<p>GDAL should build with Cygwin using the Unix-like style build methodology.  
It is also possible to build with MingW though there are some complications. 
The following might work:</p>

<pre>
./configure --prefix=$PATH_TO_MINGW_ROOT --host=mingw32 \
	--without-libtool --without-python $YOUR_CONFIG_OPTIONS
</pre>

<p>Using external win32 libraries will often be problematic with either of
these environments - at the least requiring some manual hacking of the 
GDALmake.opt file.</p>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->
<li> <b>Can I build GDAL with Borland C or other C compilers?</b>

<p>These are not supported compilers for GDAL; however, GDAL is mostly pretty
generic, so if you are willing to take on the onerous task of building an
appropriate makefile / project file it should be possible.  You will find 
most portability issues in the gdal/port/cpl_port.h file, and you will need
to prepare a gdal/port/cpl_config.h file appropriate to your platform.  Using
cpl_config.h.vc as a guide may be useful.</p>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <a name="license"><b>What exactly was the license terms for GDAL?</b></a>
<p>The following terms are the same as X windows is released under, and is
generally known as the "MIT License".  It is intended to give you permission
to do whatever you want with the GDAL source, including building proprietary
commercial software, without further permission from me, or requirement to
distribute your source code.  A few portions of GDAL under under slightly
different terms.  For instance the libpng, libjpeg, libtiff, and libgeotiff 
license terms may vary slightly though I don't think any of them differ
in any significant way.  Some external libraries which can be optionally
used by GDAL are under radically different licenses.</p>

<pre>
 Copyright (c) 2000, Frank Warmerdam

 Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a
 copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"),
 to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation
 the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense,
 and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
 Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

 The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
 in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

 THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
 OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
 FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
 THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
 LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
 FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
 DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
</pre>
</li>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>What are ``Well Known Text'' projections, and how do I use them?</b>
<p>OpenGIS <i>Well Known Text</i> is a textual format for defining coordinate
systems.  It is loosely based on the EPSG coordinate systems model.  While
GDAL itself just passes these definitions around as text strings, there is
also an OGRSpatialReference class in gdal/ogr for manipulating them and
a linkage to <a href="http://www.remotesensing.org/proj">PROJ.4</a> for 
transforming between coordinate systems.
The OGRSpatialReference, and PROJ.4 linkaged (but not PROJ.4 itself) is
linked into the GDAL shared library by default.
More documentation on WKT and OGRSpatialReference can be found in the <a href="http://www.gdal.org/ogr/osr_tutorial.html">
OGR Projections Tutorial</a>.</p>
</li>


<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>Can I reproject rasters with GDAL?</b><p>

Yes, you can use the <a href="gdal_utilities.html#gdalwarp">gdalwarp</a> 
utility program or programmatically use the GDALWarpOperation class described
in the <a href="warptut.html">Warp API Tutorial</a>.

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>Why won't gdalwarp or gdal_merge write to most formats?</b><p>

GDAL supports many raster formats for reading, but significantly less formats
for writing.  Of the ones supported for writing most are only supported in
<i>create copy</i> mode.  Essentially this means they have to be written
sequentially from a provided input copy of the image to be written.  
Programs like gdal_merge.py or gdalwarp that write chunks of imagery 
non-sequentially cannot easily write to these sequential write formats. 
Generally speaking formats that are compressed, such as PNG, JPEG and GIF
are sequential write.  Also some formats require information such as the
coordinate system and color table to be known at creation time and so these
are also sequential write formats.<p>

When you encounter this problem it is generally a good idea to first write
the result to GeoTIFF format, and then translate to the desired target
format.<p>

To determine which formats support which capabilities, use the --formats
switch with pretty much any GDAL utility.  Each driver will include either
<b>rw</b> (read-only), <b>rw</b> (read or sequential write) or <b>rw+</b>
(read, sequential write or random write).<p>

<!--------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>Is the GDAL library thread-safe?</b><p>

No, GDAL is not completely thread safe.  

However for GDAL 1.3.0 much work has been done on making some common
scenarios thread safe.  In particular for the situation where many
threads are reading from GDAL datasets at once should work as long as
no two threads access the same GDALDataset object at the same time.  
However, in this scenario, no threads can be writing to GDAL while others
are reading or chaos may ensue. 

Also, while the GDAL core infrastructure is now thread-safe for this specific
case, only a few drivers have been vetted to be thread safe.  

It is intended that work will continue on improving GDAL's thread safety
in future versions.

<!-------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>Does GDAL work in different international numeric locales?</b>
<p>No. GDAL makes extensive use of sprintf() and atof() internally to translate
numeric values. If a locale is in effect that modifies formatting of 
numbers, altering the role of commas and periods in numbers, then PROJ.4
will not work. This problem is common in some European locales.</p>

<p>On Unix-like platforms, this problem can be avoided by forcing the use of
the default numeric locale by setting the LC_NUMERIC environment variable to C, e.g.</p>

<pre>
$ export LC_NUMERIC=C
$ gdalinfo abc.tif
</pre>

<!-------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>How do I "debug" GDAL?</b>
<p>Various helpful debugging information will be produced by GDAL and OGR if
the CPL_DEBUG environment variable is set to the value ON.  Review the 
documentation for the CPLDebug() function for more information on built-in
debugging messages.</p>

<p>On Unix operating systems GDAL can be built with the CFG environment variable
set to "debug" to enable debugger support with the -g compiler switch.  On
Windows edit the nmake.opt and ensure /Zi appears in the OPTFLAGS variable.</p>
</li>

<!-------------------------------------------------------------------------->

<li> <b>How should I deallocate resources acquainted from GDAL on Windows?</b>
<p>The safest way to release resources allocated and returned (with ownership transfered to caller) from GDAL library is to use dedicated deallocator function. Deallocators promise to release resources on the right module side, without crossing modules boundaries what usually causes memory access violation errors.</p>

<ul>
    <li>Example of <strong>correct</strong> resource deallocation:
<pre>
OGRDataSource* poDS = NULL;

// OGRDataSource aquisition made on side of the GDAL module
poDS = OGRSFDriverRegistrar::Open( "point.shp", FALSE );

// ...

// Properly resource release using deallocator function
OGRDataSource::DestroyDataSource( poDS );
</pre>
    </li>

    <li>Example of <strong>incorrect</strong> resource deallocation:
<pre>
OGRDataSource* poDS = NULL;

// OGRDataSource aquisition made on side of the GDAL module
poDS = OGRSFDriverRegistrar::Open( "point.shp", FALSE );

// ...

// Deallocation across modules boundaries.
// Here, the deallocation crosses GDAL DLL library and client's module (ie. executable module)
delete poDS;
</pre>
    </li>
</ul>

<p>More detailed explanation of the problem can be found here: <a href="http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2006/09/15/755966.aspx">Allocating and freeing memory across module boundaries</a>.</p>

</li>

</ol>

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$Id: faq.dox 10108 2006-10-17 22:30:22Z mloskot $
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