Reader Directives

The directives that are processed by the MIF reader are listed below. The suffix shown is prefixed by the current <ReaderKeyword> in a mapping file. By default, the <ReaderKeyword> for the MIF reader is MIF.

DATASET

Required/Optional: Required

The value for this keyword is the folder containing the MIF files to be read, or a single MIF file. A typical mapping file fragment specifying an input MIF dataset looks like:

MIF_DATASET /usr/data/mapinfo/92i080

Workbench Parameter: Source MapInfo MIF/MID File(s)

DEF

Required/Optional

Optional

The definition specifies the base name of the file, and the names and the types of all attributes. The syntax of a MIF DEF line is:

<ReaderKeyword>_DEF <baseName> \
[<attrName> <attrType>]+

The file names of the physical MIF files is constructed by using the folder specified by the DATASET keyword, the basename specified on the MIF DEF lines, and the .mif (geometry) and .mid (attributes) extensions.

MIF files require at least one attribute to be defined. The attribute definition given must match the definition of the file being read. If it does not, translation is halted and the true definition of the MIF file’s attributes gets logged to the log file. There are no restrictions on the field names of MIF attributes.

Tip: Tip: MapInfo decimal fields are analogous to DataBase Format (DBF) number fields. MapInfo also provides float, integer, and smallint field types for storing numeric values.

The following table shows the attribute types supported.

Field Type	Description
char(<width>)	Character fields store fixed length strings. The width parameter controls the maximum number of characters that can be stored by the field. No padding is required for strings shorter than this width.
date	Date fields store dates as character strings with the format YYYYMMDD.
datetime	Datetime fields store dates as character strings with the format YYYYMMDDHHMMSS.FFF
decimal(<width>, <decimals>)	Decimal fields store single and double precision floating point values. The width parameter is the total number of characters allocated to the field, including the decimal point. The decimals parameter controls the precision of the data and is the number of digits to the right of the decimal.
float	Float fields store floating point values. There is no ability to specify the precision and width of the field.
integer	Integer fields store 32 bit signed integers.
logical	Logical fields store TRUE/FALSE data. Data read or written from and to such fields must always have a value of either true or false.
smallint	Small integer fields store 16 bit signed integers and therefore have a range of -32767 to +32767.
time	Time fields store times as character strings with the format HHMMSS.FFF

The following mapping file fragment defines two MIF files. Notice that neither definition specifies the geometric type of the entities it will contain since MIF files may contain any of the valid geometry types.

MIF_DEF landcover \
     area                          decimal(12,3) \
      landcoverType          char(11) \
      perimeter                   float
MIF_DEF roads \
     numberOfLanes        smallint \
      roadType                  char(5) \
      underConstruction   logical \
      divided                     logical \
      travelDirection         char(6)

IDs

Required/Optional

Optional

This optional specification limits the available and defined MIF files read. If no IDs are specified, then all defined and available MIF files are read.

The syntax of the IDs keyword is:

The basenames must match those used in DEF lines.

Workbench Parameter:

Feature Types to Read

Example: The example below selects only the roads MIF file for input during a translation:

MIF_IDs roads

ENCODING

This directive is applicable only if you are working with foreign (non-English) character sets.

For example, if your source data contains foreign characters, using this directive along with the encoding value ensures that the original data is preserved from the reader to the writer.

Required/Optional

Optional

Values

Values supported by MapInfo 10:

SJIS, CP437, CP850, CP852, CP855, CP857, CP860, CP861, CP863, CP864, CP865, CP869, CP874, CP932, CP936, CP950, CP1250, CP1251, CP1253, CP1254, CP1255, CP1256, ISO8859-1, ISO8859-2, ISO8859-3, ISO8859-4, ISO8859-5, ISO8859-6, ISO8859-7, ISO8859-8, ISO8859-9

Mapping File Syntax

<ReaderKeyword>_ENCODING <encoding>

Workbench Parameter

Character Encoding (optional)

SEARCH_ENVELOPE

Using the minimum and maximum x and y parameters, define a bounding box that will be used to filter the input features. Only features that interact with the bounding box are returned.

If all four coordinates of the search envelope are specified as 0, the search envelope will be disabled.

Mapping File Syntax

<ReaderKeyword>_SEARCH_ENVELOPE <minX> <minY> <maxX> <maxY>

Note: If all four coordinates of the search envelope are specified as zero, the search envelope will be disabled.

Required/Optional

Optional

Workbench Parameter

Minimum X, Minimum Y, Maximum X, Maximum Y

SEARCH_ENVELOPE_COORDINATE_SYSTEM

This directive specifies the coordinate system of the search envelope if it is different than the coordinate system of the data.

The COORDINATE_SYSTEM directive, which specifies the coordinate system associated with the data to be read, must always be set if the SEARCH_ENVELOPE_COORDINATE_SYSTEM directive is set.

If this directive is set, the minimum and maximum points of the search envelope are reprojected from the SEARCH_ENVELOPE_COORDINATE_SYSTEM to the reader COORDINATE_SYSTEM prior to applying the envelope.

Required/Optional

Optional

Mapping File Syntax

<ReaderKeyword>_SEARCH_ENVELOPE_COORDINATE_SYSTEM <coordinate system>

Workbench Parameter

Search Envelope Coordinate System

CLIP_TO_ENVELOPE

This directive specifies whether or not FME should clip features to the envelope specified in the SEARCH_ENVELOPE directive.

Values

YES | NO (default)

Mapping File Syntax

<ReaderKeyword>_CLIP_TO_ENVELOPE [yes | no]

Workbench Parameter

Clip To Envelope

EXPOSED_ATTRS

This directive allows the selection of format attributes to be explicitly added to the reader feature type.

This is similar to exposing format attributes on a reader feature type once it has been generated; however, it is even more powerful because it enables schema-driven applications other than Workbench to access and leverage these attributes as if they were explicitly on the schema as user attributes.

The result of picking a list of attributes is a comma-separated list of attribute names and types that will be added to the schema features. Currently all reader feature types will receive the same set of additional schema attributes for a given instance of the reader.

Required/Optional

Optional

Mapping File Syntax

Not applicable.

While it is possible for FME Objects applications to invoke this directive, the required format is not documented.

This directive is intended for use in our GUI applications (for example, Workbench) only.

Workbench Parameter

Additional Attributes to Expose