Python ogr2ogr language character encoding

Question

In python script i'm exporting .shp files to .csv/.gpx/.kml

import ogr, ogr2ogr
...
ogr2ogr.main(["","-f", "CSV", csvfile, shpfile, "-lco", "GEOMETRY=AS_WKT", "-lco", "SEPARATOR=SEMICOLON"])
ogr2ogr.main(["","-f", "GPX", "-dsco", "GPX_USE_EXTENSIONS=YES", gpxfile, shpfile])
ogr2ogr.main(["","-f", "KML", kmlfile, shpfile])

The files are exported, but the language(Latvian) specific string field characters are incorrect. Shape files have string field "LABEL" with a value i.e. "marķieris".

In case of .kml file it is turned into "markieris", and in case of .csv and .gpx it is turned into "maríieris". All exported files have utf-8 (without BOM) encoding.

So far i had no luck finding if i have to pass some kind of additional parameter, or do something else to fix this language issue. Scrip is executed in Windows.

• Stefan: Did you tried latin1 encoding? SHAPE_ENCODING="LATIN1". LINUX or Windows?
• Sunder: It's in Windows. Also by adding aditional parameter "SHAPE_ENCODING=LATIN1"(as the last parameter) it didnt throw any error, but the result files now are empty assides from metadata.
• Antonio Falciano: And SHAPE_ENCODING=ISO-8859-4, i.e. the ISO alias of Latin 4?

Answer 1

You should try with the following configuration option:

--config SHAPE_ENCODING="ISO-8859-4"

because ISO-8859-4 is the ISO alias of Latin 4.

Latin 4 introduces letters for Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian.

• Sunder: If i use ogr2ogr --config SHAPE_ENCODING ISO-8859-4 -f KML output.kml input.shp then it will give out warning "Warning 1: marĒieris is not a valid UTF-8 string. forcing it to ASCII." Forcing can be disabled by OGR_FORCE_ASCII NO but then special characters are question marks. Also when tried with ISO-8859-1 it didn't change anything, nor it gave any warning, so i assume that is the default used encoding here.