Open Geospatial Consortium

Publication Date:   2024-02-06

Reference URL for this OGC® document: http://www.opengis.net/doc/NOTES/GeoPackage/1.4

Internal reference number of this OGC® document:    23-018r1

Category: Release Notes

Editor:  Jeff Yutzler

Release Notes for OGC GeoPackage 1.4.0

Copyright notice

Copyright © 2024 Open Geospatial Consortium

To obtain additional rights of use, visit http://www.opengeospatial.org/legal/

Warning

This document is not an OGC Standard. This document provides release notes for an OGC Standard. This document is subject to change without notice and may not be referred to as an OGC Standard.

Recipients of this document are invited to submit, with their comments, notification of any relevant patent rights of which they are aware and to provide supporting documentation.

Document type:    Release Notes

Document subtype:

Document stage:    Approved

Document language:  English

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Preface

This document provides the set of revision notes for OGC® GeoPackage Encoding Standard, version 1.4.0 [OGC 12-128r19] and does not modify that Standard.

This document provides the details of edits, deficiency corrections, and enhancements of the above-referenced Standard. It also documents those items that have been deprecated. Finally, this document provides implementations details related to issues of backwards compatibility.

Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be the subject of patent rights. The Open Geospatial Consortium shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.

Recipients of this document are requested to submit, with their comments, notification of any relevant patent claims or other intellectual property rights of which they may be aware that might be infringed by any implementation of the Standard set forth in this document, and to provide supporting documentation.

Keywords

ogcdoc, GeoPackage, release notes

1. Introduction

1.1. Scope

1.2. Document contributor contact points

All questions regarding this document should be directed to the contacts provided below or the referenced Standard editor(s).

Table 1. Contacts
Name Organization

Jeff Yutzler

Image Matters LLC

2. References

The following normative documents are new or updated references in the Standard to which these Release Notes apply.

3. Terms and definitions

This document uses the terms defined in Sub-clause 5.3 of [OGC 06-121r8], which is based on the ISO/IEC Directives, Part 2, Rules for the structure and drafting of International Standards. In particular, the word “shall” (not “must”) is the verb form used to indicate a requirement to be strictly followed to conform to this Standard.

For the purposes of this document, the following additional terms and definitions apply.

3.1. administrative change

An administrative change is a change that does not alter the conformance abstract tests for any requirements. It includes typographical errors, changes in wording to improve clarity or consistency, and perfunctory changes such as changes in version numbers.

3.2. critical Change

A critical change is a change that alters requirements in a way that is known to cause reverse compatibility issues.

3.3. substantive change

A substantive change is a change that alters requirements in a way that is not deemed to have a high risk for causing reverse compatibility issues.

3.4. Abbreviated terms

4. Change Log

4.1. KEY

  • Source:

    • Change Request (CR)

    • GitHub Issue

    • Editor - The GeoPackage document Editor

    • OGC-NA - OGC Naming Authority review

    • Public - Public Comment period

    • SWG decision

    • User - The GeoPackage User Community

    • Other

  • Identifier: Change Request number or issue number and pull request/commit in GitHub

  • Type:

    • A=Administrative

    • S=Substantive

    • C=Critical

See Description of Critical Changes for more information on critical changes and Description of Substantive Changes for more information on substantive changes.

  • Section: Section number in the updated document

  • Description: Brief text describing the change

  • Purpose: the reason for the change:

    • Clarity

    • Consistency

    • Interoperability

    • Perfunctory

    • Readability

    • Usability

    • Correctness

4.2. Change Table

Table 2. Change Log
Source Identifier Type Section Description Purpose

A

1.1.1.1.1

Add note explaining how to retrieve the GeoPackage Version

Clarity

S

1.1.1.1.3, 1.1.3.1.2, Annex F.8

Make DATETIME format more flexible

Correctness

A

1.1.1.1.1

Move example indicating GeoPackage Version format to a note

Clarity

S

1.1.1.1.3

Relax Requirement #4

Usability

S

Annex F.3

Replace update1 trigger with update6 and update7 to support upsert operations

Correctness

A

1.1.1.1.3, 1.1.3.1.2, Annex F.8

Point all references to date-time formats back to Requirement #5

Clarity

A

1.1.2.1.1, Annex I, Annex J

Update EPSG references

Correctness

5. Description of Critical Changes

There are no critical changes in this release.

6. Description of Substantive Changes

6.1. Relax Requirement #4

The GeoPackage designation was originally designed to indicate a schema with maximum interoperability. However, as the standard has evolved, it has become increasingly important for GeoPackages to contain certain extensions. In light of this evolution, the difference between a GeoPackage and an Extended GeoPackage is no longer relevant. If anything, this requirement was just causing confusion. The presence of extensions would cause the Executable Test Suite (ETS) to skip Requirement 4, which has implications in how ETS results are interpreted.

This change has no significant operational impact.

6.2. Update R-tree Index Triggers

Two changes have been made to the R-tree Spatial Index Triggers, which are part of the R-tree Spatial Indexes Extension.

  1. In GeoPackage 1.2.1, the update3 trigger was fixed. However, to simplify the process for a client to detect whether the faulty trigger has been repaired, the trigger has now been renamed to _update5.

  2. In GeoPackage 1.4.0, the update1 trigger has been fixed to correct a flaw that prevented it from working properly during UPSERT statements. The update1 trigger has been deprecated and replaced by the new update6 and update7 triggers. As with the update3 and update5 triggers, this simplifies the process for a client to detect whether the faulty trigger has been repaired.

These changes are designed to prevent interoperability problems and do not introduce any new interoperability risks. Clients are encouraged to apply these fixes to older versions of GeoPackage as well. The Executable Test Suite will be updated to ensure that either set of triggers is treated as compliant.

6.3. Make DATETIME format more flexible

In GeoPackage 1.3.1 and prior, Requirement 5 specified that DATETIME formats must conform to the template YYYY-MM-DDTHH:MM:SS.SSSZ. This is unnecessarily restrictive and can cause problems in the following ways:

  • Requiring unnecessary precision may add bloat to the GeoPackage.

  • Requiring a very specific precision may cause problems when converting other data to GeoPackage, including loss of data and the necessity of an additional agent to artificially modify the existing data so that it conforms to the template.

In fact, SQLite documentation offers a number of legal formats and allows fractional seconds to have fewer or more than three digits. In response, the SWG agreed to relax the definition, while retaining compatibility with ISO-8601.

Note

After reviewing the potential impact on GeoPackage clients, changes regarding date-time formats have been deferred until further notice.

7. Future Work

In the future, the GeoPackage SWG will revisit the DATETIME topic, with the goal to mitigate the issues that were brought to the group’s attention during the public comment period.

Appendix A: Revision History

Table 3. Revision History
Date Release Editor Primary clauses modified Descriptions

2023-03-19

0.1

J. Yutzler

all

Initial Revision

2023-03-29

0.2

J. Yutzler

4, 6

640/655

2023-05-24

0.3

J. Yutzler

4, 6

660/661

2023-05-31

0.4

J. Yutzler

4

OAB Review

2023-05-31

0.4

J. Yutzler

4, 6

Open Comment Period

2023-09-06

0.5

J. Yutzler

4, 6

Revert #653

2023-10-02

0.6

J. Yutzler

7

Add future work in response to #666

2023-10-19

0.7

J. Yutzler

4

669/670

For the complete revision history, see the GitHub repository.

Appendix B: Bibliography