# MSSQLSpatial - Microsoft SQL Server Spatial Database

This driver implements support for access to spatial tables in Microsoft SQL Server 2008+ which contains the geometry and geography data types to repesent the geometry columns.

## Connecting to a database

To connect to a MSSQL datasource, use a connection string specifying the database name, with additional parameters as necessary. The connection strings must be prefixed with 'MSSQL:'.

>     MSSQL:server=.\MSSQLSERVER2008;database=dbname;trusted_connection=yes

In addition to the standard parameters of the ODBC driver connection string format the following custom parameters can also be used in the following syntax:

- Tables=schema1.table1(geometry column1),schema2.table2(geometry column2): By using this parameter you can specify the subset of the layers to be used by the driver. If this parameter is not set, the layers are retrieved from the geometry_columns metadata table. You can omit specifying the schema and the geometry column portions of the syntax.
- GeometryFormat=native|wkb|wkt: The desired format in which the geometries should be retrieved from the server. The default value is 'native' in this case the native SqlGeometry and SqlGeography serialization format is used. When using the 'wkb' or 'wkt' setting the geometry representation is converted to 'Well Known Binary' and 'Well Known Text' at the server. This conversion requires a significant overhead at the server and makes the feature access slower than using the native format.

The parameter names are not case sensitive in the connection strings.

Specifying the Database parameter is required by the driver in order to select the proper database.

The connection may contain the optional Driver parameter if a custom SQL server driver should be loaded (like FreeTDS). The default is {SQL Server}

## Layers

Starting with GDAL 1.11 if the user defines the environment variable MSSQLSPATIAL_LIST_ALL_TABLES=YES (and does not specify Tables= in the connection string), all regular user tables will be treated as layers. This option is useful if you want tables with with no spatial data

By default the MSSQL driver will only look for layers that are registered in the geometry_columns metadata table. Starting with GDAL 1.10 if the user defines the environment variable MSSQLSPATIAL_USE_GEOMETRY_COLUMNS=NO then the driver will look for all user spatial tables found in the system catalog

## SQL statements

The MS SQL Spatial driver passes SQL statements directly to MS SQL by default, rather than evaluating them internally when using the ExecuteSQL() call on the OGRDataSource, or the -sql command option to ogr2ogr. Attribute query expressions are also passed directly through to MSSQL. It's also possible to request the OGR MSSQL driver to handle SQL commands with the OGR SQL engine, by passing "OGRSQL" string to the ExecuteSQL() method, as the name of the SQL dialect.

The MSSQL driver in OGR supports the OGRLayer::StartTrasaction(), OGRLayer::CommitTransaction() and OGRLayer::RollbackTransaction() calls in the normal SQL sense.

## Creation Issues

This driver doesn't support creating new databases, you might want to use the Microsoft SQL Server Client Tools for this purpose, but it does allow creation of new layers within an existing database.

### Layer Creation Options

- GEOM_TYPE: The GEOM_TYPE layer creation option can be set to one of "geometry" or "geography". If this option is not specified the default value is "geometry". So as to create the geometry column with "geography" type, this parameter should be set "geography". In this case the layer must have a valid spatial referece of one of the geography coordinate systems defined in the sys.spatial_reference_systems SQL Server metadata table. Projected coordinate systems are not supported in this case.
- OVERWRITE: This may be "YES" to force an existing layer of the desired name to be destroyed before creating the requested layer.
- LAUNDER: This may be "YES" to force new fields created on this layer to have their field names "laundered" into a form more compatible with MSSQL. This converts to lower case and converts some special characters like "-" and "#" to "_". If "NO" exact names are preserved. The default value is "YES". If enabled the table (layer) name will also be laundered.
- PRECISION: This may be "YES" to force new fields created on this layer to try and represent the width and precision information, if available using numeric(width,precision) or char(width) types. If "NO" then the types float, int and varchar will be used instead. The default is "YES".
- DIM={2,3}: Control the dimension of the layer. Defaults to 3.
- GEOM_NAME: Set the name of geometry column in the new table. If omitted it defaults to ogr_geometry.
- SCHEMA: Set name of schema for new table. If this parameter is not supported the default schema "dbo" is used.
- SRID: Set the spatial reference id of the new table explicitly. The corresponding entry should already be added to the spatial_ref_sys metadata table. If this parameter is not set the SRID is derived from the authority code of source layer SRS.

### Spatial Index Creation

By default the MS SQL Spatial driver doesn't add spatial indexes to the tables during the layer creation. However you should create a spatial index by using the following sql option:

>     create spatial index on schema.table

The spatial index can also be dropped by using the following syntax:

>     drop spatial index on schema.table

## Examples

Creating a layer from an OGR data source

>     ogr2ogr -overwrite -f MSSQLSpatial "MSSQL:server=.\MSSQLSERVER2008;database=geodb;trusted_connection=yes" "rivers.tab"

Connecting to a layer and dump the contents

>     ogrinfo -al "MSSQL:server=.\MSSQLSERVER2008;database=geodb;tables=rivers;trusted_connection=yes"

Creating a spatial index

>     ogrinfo -sql "create spatial index on rivers" "MSSQL:server=.\MSSQLSERVER2008;database=geodb;trusted_connection=yes"