Note: Esri ArcInfo Coverage: reading available with Professional edition; reading and writing available with Esri Edition.
Esri ArcInfo Export (E00): reading available with Base edition; reading and writing available with Professional edition.
The E00 (Esri® ArcInfo® Coverage and Export) Reader/Writer enables FME to read and write binary coverages, E00 files and Info tables. Full support for compressed E00 files – export option 1 or 2 – is also provided. Safe Software’s FME Esri Edition also reads and writes binary ArcInfo coverages directly.
Overview
A single E00 file describes a complete ArcInfo coverage. The file itself is actually an archive of several smaller files, referred to here as subfiles. Some of these subfiles have fixed names which do not vary from coverage to coverage, and follow a predefined data format. These are referred to as the standard subfiles.
The remainder of the subfiles contained within an E00 are the info files. These files may contain user-defined attributes, and have names that vary from coverage to coverage.
Reader Overview
The E00/ArcInfo reader produces FME features for all feature data contained in a single E00 file, binary ArcInfo coverage or ArcInfo table. In order to process multiple E00 files, coverages, you must invoke the FME for each E00 file, or use the Multi-Reader, described in the Multi-Reader chapter.
Large E00 files are often split into smaller files, named <filename>.e00,<filename>.e01, <filename>.e02, etc. The E00 reader automatically detects this and reads the set of files as if they were a single E00 file.
To read ArcInfo coverages, specify the folder that contains the coverage to the E00 reader.
To read just the ArcInfo tables, specify the “info” folder that contains the info tables to the ArcInfo reader. All info tables will be processed as data with no spatial information attached to it even though they may be part of the coverage.
Writer Overview
The ArcInfo writer provides the ability to generate, in a single invocation of the FME, several E00 files or binary coverage folders. All E00 files or coverages created in a single run of the FME will be placed into a single folder.
Unlike the reader, the writer requires DEF lines to define the attributes of the output E00 files or binary coverage folders. The writer provides a mechanism to apply a single set of attributes to all geometric features placed into a file, as well as allowing each specific info file to have a unique set of attributes.
The E00 writer can create compressed or uncompressed E00 files, or, with FME Esri Edition, binary ArcInfo coverages.