SAIF Feature Representation

SAIF features consist of a feature type, a geometry or text class, attribute path and attribute value pairs, and coordinates. A typical FME correlation line for SAIF has two forms: geometric entity form and text entity form.

Geometric Entity Form

This form of FME correlation line is used for all SAIF geometric entities. The line first specified is the <member type>. The value specified for <member type> must match a value specified in a SAIF_DEF line. The line then stipulates the type of geometry that the feature contains. The FME supports all SAIF geometries permitted by SAIF-Lite. Finally, the <attribute path> <attribute value> pairs are specified, as they are for any other formats. The only difference with SAIF is that the <attribute path> values may be of arbitrary depth. See the SAIF Toolkit Application Programming Interface (API) document for a discussion of attribute paths.1The SAIF-Lite specification and SAIF Toolkit API document describe the allowed geometry types and the attribute path syntax used by SAIF.

SAIF <member type> \
	position.geometry.Class <geometry class> \
	[<attribute path> <attribute value>]*

Text Entity Form

This form of the FME correlation line is used for all SAIF text entities. The line is almost the same as the geometric entity above, except that instead of specifying a <geometry class>, a <text class> is specified. See the SAIF Formal Specification for a list of all the different SAIF text classes that can be specified.

SAIF <member type> \
	textOrSymbol.Class <text class>	\
	[<attribute path> <attribute value>]*