# CartoDB

(GDAL/OGR >= 1.11)

This driver can connect to the services implementing the CartoDB API. GDAL/OGR must be built with Curl support in order for the CartoDB driver to be compiled.

The driver supports read and write operations.

## Dataset name syntax

The minimal syntax to open a CartoDB datasource is :

    CartoDB:[connection_name]

For single-user accounts, connection name is the account name. For multi-user accounts, connection_name must be the user name, not the account name. Additionnal optional parameters can be specified after the ':' sign. Currently the following one is supported :

- tables=table_name1[,table_name2]*: A list of table names. This is necessary when you need to access to public tables for example.

If several parameters are specified, they must be separated by a space.

## Configuration options

The following configuration options are available :

- CARTODB_API_URL: defaults to https://[account_name].cartodb.com/api/v2/sql. Can be used to point to another server.
- CARTODB_HTTPS: can be set to NO to use http:// protocol instead of https:// (only if CARTODB_API_URL is not defined).
- CARTODB_API_KEY: see following paragraph.

## Authentication

Most operations, in particular write operations, require an authenticated access. The only exception is read-only access to public tables.

Authenticated access is obtained by specifying the API key given in the management interface of the CartoDB service. It is specified with the CARTODB_API_KEY configuration option.

## Geometry

The OGR driver will report as many geometry fields as available in the layer (except the 'the_geom_webmercator' field), following RFC 41.

## Filtering

The driver will forward any spatial filter set with SetSpatialFilter() to the server. It also makes the same for attribute filters set with SetAttributeFilter().

## Paging

Features are retrieved from the server by chunks of 500 by default. This number can be altered with the CARTODB_PAGE_SIZE configuration option.

## Write support

Table creation and deletion is possible.

Write support is only enabled when the datasource is opened in update mode.

The mapping between the operations of the CartoDB service and the OGR concepts is the following :

- OGRFeature::CreateFeature() <==> INSERT operation
- OGRFeature::SetFeature() <==> UPDATE operation
- OGRFeature::DeleteFeature() <==> DELETE operation
- OGRDataSource::CreateLayer() <==> CREATE TABLE operation
- OGRDataSource::DeleteLayer() <==> DROP TABLE operation

When inserting a new feature with CreateFeature(), and if the command is successful, OGR will fetch the returned rowid and use it as the OGR FID.

The above operations are by default issued to the server synchronously with the OGR API call. This however can cause performance penalties when issuing a lot of commands due to many client/server exchanges.

So, on a newly created layer, the INSERT of CreateFeature() operations are grouped together in chunks until they reach 15 MB (can be changed with the CARTODB_MAX_CHUNK_SIZE configuration option, with a value in MB), at which point they are transferred to the server. By setting CARTODB_MAX_CHUNK_SIZE to 0, immediate transfer occurs.

## SQL

SQL commands provided to the OGRDataSource::ExecuteSQL() call are executed on the server side, unless the OGRSQL dialect is specified. You can use the full power of PostgreSQL + PostGIS SQL capabilities.

## Open options

Starting with GDAL 2.0, the following open options are available:

- BATCH_INSERT=YES/NO: Whether to group feature insertions in a batch. Defaults to YES. Only apply in creation or update mode.

## Layer creation options

The following layer creation options are available:

- OVERWRITE=YES/NO: Whether to overwrite an existing table with the layer name to be created. Defaults to NO.
- GEOMETRY_NULLABLE=YES/NO: Whether the values of the geometry column can be NULL. Defaults to YES.
- CARTODBFY=YES/NO: Whether the created layer should be "CartoDBifi'ed" (i.e. registered in dashboard). Defaults to YES.
- LAUNDER=YES/NO: This may be "YES" to force new fields created on this layer to have their field names "laundered" into a form more compatible with PostgreSQL. This converts to lower case and converts some special characters like "-" and "#" to "_". If "NO" exact names are preserved. The default value is "YES". If enabled the table (layer) name will also be laundered.

## Examples

- Acceccing data from a public table:

      ogrinfo -ro "CartoDB:gdalautotest2 tables=tm_world_borders_simpl_0_3"

- Creating and populating a table from a shapefile:

      ogr2ogr --config CARTODB_API_KEY abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvw -f CartoDB "CartoDB:myaccount" myshapefile.shp

  ## See Also

  - CartoDB API overview