Hi Nathan I also think that a native QGIS provider (subclass of QgsVectorDataProvider) for MS SQL 2008 would be a great thing. The reason to go for a native driver (and not via OGR) are the same as with PostGIS:
- performance is better (less conversion) - even with the OGR driver, it needs work to be done for a good QGIS integration. E.g. QGIS is strict to have only one shapetype in a layer and it requires a unique identifiere for a feature (also in a db view) Btw. a native oracle spatial provider would also be nice to have. Oracle spatial is (unfortunately) quite common here. Regards, Marco Am Montag, 5. September 2011, 14.05:00 schrieb Nathan Woodrow: > Hi all, > > There has been some interest from a company here in Australia to develop a > MS SQL driver/provider for QGIS. IMO this is a good move as most > local governments, where I work and where I push my QGIS agenda, pretty > much all use MS SQL 2008 spatial for storing spatial data. Having a > driver for MS SQL would make QGIS more attractive to these and many more > Windows users. > > The thing I wanted to find out was if implementing a native/provider MS SQL > Driver in QGIS would be the correct way to go about this. At current there > is already a MS SQL driver for OGR, which can be used to open layer from > the database in QGIS using the Python console. However there is no UI and > while OGR is fine with opening database connections it seems strange to > use OGR for some database engines but not others. > > My thoughts were > > Implement a native QGIS driver for MS SQL inheriting from > QgsVectorDataProvider > > - Less program layers as your not going though OGR then wrapping it in > the QgsFeature class (should be faster). > - Implement QBrowser support like what Giuseppe has done with his > improvements to the postgis provider. > - Closer control over the code eg faster bug fixing and features. Don't > need to wait for OGR packages to be updated. > > I guess something that came to mind is that we have a native provider for > PostGIS but yet OGR supports it. > > In my mind a native driver is the way to go as we can integrate it more > tightly into the QGIS code base and not rely on an other library for bug > fixes and updates. > > What are other peoples thoughts? > > - NathanW -- Dr. Marco Hugentobler Sourcepole - Linux & Open Source Solutions Churerstrasse 22, CH-8808 Pfäffikon SZ, Switzerland marco.hugentob...@sourcepole.ch http://www.sourcepole.ch Technical Advisor QGIS Project Steering Committee _______________________________________________ Qgis-developer mailing list Qgis-developer@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/qgis-developer