shapefile terminology for key-value pair

Question

In an .osm file, there are <TAG ... /> elements like

<way visible="true" id="-4409" timestamp="1970-01-01T00:00:00Z" version="1"> <nd ref="-21845"/> <tag k="fcc" v="A40"/> <tag k="len_miles" v="0.037850000000000002"/> <tag k="et_id" v="4407"/>

The "k" and "v" in these refer to key - value pairs. What are the equivalent things called in shapefiles? Are they called (attribute, value) pairs? I see they're visible in the Attribute Table in QGIS and the k's correspond to columns and the v's are what is in the cells of that table.

What shapefile converter do you refer to? Shapefiles have a general concept of attaching an datatable that refers the geoobjects 1:1. You can add 2 cols ("k","v") with varchar type that hold the OSM pairs, or you add cols that correspond to the OSM keys you want to replicate and add the value as content. — Mapper, Jun 01 '14 at 06:44
I am doing my own conversion, in python. I am concerned about the terminology mostly so I can communicate accurately what I have done. — user1416227, Jun 01 '14 at 23:30

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 01 '14 at 14:45

2

In dBase terminology, each row is a "record" and each column is a "field". Different GIS software may refer to these objects differently. Key-Value and Row-Column are sufficiently different concepts that I'd caution against trying to apply a simple equivalence.

answered Jun 01 '14 at 14:45

Vince

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+1 for pointing out that Key-Value and Row-Column are different. – Devdatta Tengshe Jun 01 '14 at 15:37
(I'd vote you up but my rep is too low to do even that) – user1416227 Jun 01 '14 at 23:30

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 01 '14 at 06:45

That sounds fine to me. The equivalent of a key pair in a shape file is an attribute value combination. In the attribute table the attribute is the column and the values are shown across the row. Each row is a feature and has an id associated with it, these are system generated and it's best to ignore them.

Each entity in an XML file becomes a feature in the shapefile, each key becomes an attribute for the whole shapefile and each value is populated in the row. Where this situation can break down is if a key-value has a different name or new keys are introduced... this is possible in an XML enclosure but is not possible in a shapefile.

(I'd vote you up but my rep is too low to do even that) – user1416227 Jun 01 '14 at 23:29 — user1416227, Jun 01 '14 at 23:29

shapefile terminology for key-value pair

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