CITS Data Transfer Format (QLF) Reader/Writer

Licensing options for this format begin with FME Professional Edition.

The Centre for Topographic Information Sherbrooke (CITS) Data Transfer Format (QLF) Reader/Writer allows FME to read and write QLF import and export files. The QLF is a published ASCII format used by CITS for import and export.

Overview

QLF files store both feature geometry and attribution. A QLF file has the following file name extension:

File Name Extension

Contents

.qlf

Vector geometric data

.qlf.gz

Vector geometric data in compressed gzip format

The extension is added to the basename of the QLF file. Optionally adding .gz to the extension will output a compressed gzip QLF format file; conversely, the reader can directly read files with the extension .qlf.gz.

The QLF reader and writer supports the storage of point, line, and polygon geometric data in .qlf files. The QLF format also stores features with no geometry. Features having no geometry are referred to as having a geometry of none.

Reader Overview

The QLF reader extracts features from a file one at a time, and passes them on to the rest of the FME for further processing. The reader finishes when it reaches the end of the file.

Writer Overview

The QLF writer creates and writes feature data to a QLF file specified by the Writer dataset.

As with the reader, the folder must exist before the translation occurs. Any existing QLF files in the folder are overwritten with the new feature data. Only one QLF file can be written during a single FME session.

Optionally a .prj file will also be written if the coordinate system’s (projection) information is available. Output .prj files comply with Esri’s shape format projection file specification.