GDAL-VECTOR-CHECK-COVERAGE(1)

📦
version 3.13.3 · 4 versions
, in alpine 3.24, arch rolling, ubuntu stonking

💖 GDAL-VECTOR-CHECK-COVERAGE(1) 💖

okay bestie, it's the GDAL manual, section 1, and today's main character is gdal-vector-check-coverage. grab a snack, this one's a whole vibe. 🍓

🌸 NAME 🌸

gdal-vector-check-coverage — check polygon coverage for validity ✨

Added in version 3.12. 🎀

📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

Usage: gdal vector check-coverage [OPTIONS] <INPUT> <OUTPUT>

Check a polygon coverage for validity

Positional arguments:
  -i, --input <INPUT>                                  Input vector datasets [required] [not available in pipelines]
  -o, --output <OUTPUT>                                Output vector dataset [required] [not available in pipelines]

Common Options:
  -h, --help                                           Display help message and exit
  --json-usage                                         Display usage as JSON document and exit
  --config <KEY>=<VALUE>                               Configuration option [may be repeated]
  -q, --quiet                                          Quiet mode (no progress bar or warning message) [not available in pipelines]

Options:
  -l, --layer, --input-layer <INPUT-LAYER>             Input layer name(s) [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
  -f, --of, --format, --output-format <OUTPUT-FORMAT>  Output format ("GDALG" allowed) [not available in pipelines]
  --co, --creation-option <KEY>=<VALUE>                Creation option [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
  --lco, --layer-creation-option <KEY>=<VALUE>         Layer creation option [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
  --overwrite                                          Whether overwriting existing output dataset is allowed [not available in pipelines]
  --update                                             Whether to open existing dataset in update mode [not available in pipelines]
  --overwrite-layer                                    Whether overwriting existing output layer is allowed [not available in pipelines]
  --append                                             Whether appending to existing layer is allowed [not available in pipelines]
                                                       Mutually exclusive with --upsert
  --output-layer <OUTPUT-LAYER>                        Output layer name [not available in pipelines]
  --skip-errors                                        Skip errors when writing features [not available in pipelines]
  --no-create-empty-layers                             Avoid creating layers to which no features will be written [not available in pipelines]
  --include-valid                                      Include valid inputs in output, with empty geometry
  --geometry-field <GEOMETRY-FIELD>                    Name of geometry field to check
  --maximum-gap-width <MAXIMUM-GAP-WIDTH>              Maximum width of a gap to be flagged

Advanced Options:
  --if, --input-format <INPUT-FORMAT>                  Input formats [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
  --oo, --open-option <KEY>=<VALUE>                    Open options [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
  --output-oo, --output-open-option <KEY>=<VALUE>      Output open options [may be repeated] [not available in pipelines]
  --upsert                                             Upsert features (implies 'append') [not available in pipelines]
                                                       Mutually exclusive with --append

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

so, gdal vector check-coverage checks whether a polygon dataset forms a valid coverage, meaning:

  • no polygons overlap 🙅
  • all shared edges have nodes at the same locations 📍
  • any gaps between polygons are larger than a specified width 📏

For every polygon that does not satisfy these criteria, a linear feature with the geometry of the invalid edge gets output. and if the coverage is valid? then your output dataset is just gonna be empty — unless you brought --include-valid along for the ride. 💅

heads up: it's assumed that the individual polygons are themselves valid according to the OGC Simple Features standard. you can double-check that with gdal vector check-geometry. 🦋

[image] Polygon dataset (left) and locations of invalid coverage edges (right).
NOTE: This command requires a GDAL build against the GEOS library (version 3.12 or greater). no GEOS, no coverage check, periodt. 💀

🌈 GDALG OUTPUT (ON-THE-FLY / STREAMED DATASET) 🌈

This program supports serializing the command line as a JSON file using the GDALG output format. The resulting file can then be opened as a vector dataset using the GDALG: GDAL Streamed Algorithm driver, and apply the specified pipeline in a on-the-fly / streamed way. ✨

NOTE: However this algorithm is not natively streaming compatible. Consequently a in-memory temporary dataset will be generated, which may cause significant processing time at opening. 😭

🎀 PROGRAM-SPECIFIC OPTIONS 🎀

  • --geometry-field — Name the geometry field you want to test, for those layers who are out here having multiple geometry fields. no name given? then the first geometry field gets picked by default. 👑
  • --include-valid — Include features for valid geometries in the output, keeping that sweet 1:1 correspondence between input and output features. the geometry of the valid features will be an empty geometry. (iconic behaviour honestly)
  • --input-layer — Specifies the name of the layer to process. By default, all layers will be processed.
  • --output-layer — Specifies the name of the layer to which features will be written. If not specified and there is a single input layer, the name invalid_edge will be used. If not specified and there are multiple input layers, features for each input layer will be written to a separate output layer in the format invalid_edge_{INPUT_LAYER}.
  • --maximum-gap-width <MAXIMUM-GAP-WIDTH> — Defines the largest area that should be considered a gap. 🕳️

⭐ STANDARD OPTIONS ⭐

  • --append — Whether appending features to existing layer(s) is allowed. This also creates the output dataset if it does not exist yet.
  • --co, --creation-option <NAME>=<VALUE> — Many formats have one or more optional dataset creation options that can be used to control particulars about the file created. For instance, the GeoPackage driver supports creation options to control the version.

May be repeated.

The dataset creation options available vary by format driver, and some simple formats have no creation options at all. A list of options supported for a format can be listed with the --formats command line option but the documentation for the format is the definitive source of information on driver creation options. See Vector drivers format specific documentation for legal creation options for each format.

Note that dataset creation options are different from layer creation options. don't mix them up bestie 💅

  • --if, --input-format <format> — Format/driver name to be attempted to open the input file(s). It is generally not necessary to specify it, but it can be used to skip automatic driver detection, when it fails to select the appropriate driver. This option can be repeated several times to specify several candidate drivers. Note that it does not force those drivers to open the dataset. In particular, some drivers have requirements on file extensions.

May be repeated.

  • --lco, --layer-creation-option <NAME>=<VALUE> — Many formats have one or more optional layer creation options that can be used to control particulars about the layer created. For instance, the GeoPackage driver supports layer creation options to control the feature identifier or geometry column name, setting the identifier or description, etc.

May be repeated.

The layer creation options available vary by format driver, and some simple formats have no layer creation options at all. A list of options supported for a format can be listed with the --formats command line option but the documentation for the format is the definitive source of information on driver creation options. See Vector drivers format specific documentation for legal creation options for each format.

Note that layer creation options are different from dataset creation options. yes, again. sorry, it matters. 🙈

  • --no-create-empty-layers — Avoid creating layers to which no features will be written.
Added in version 3.13.
  • --oo, --open-option <NAME>=<VALUE> — Dataset open option (format specific).

May be repeated.

  • -f, --of, --format, --output-format <OUTPUT-FORMAT> — Which output vector format to use. Allowed values may be given by:
gdal --formats | grep vector | grep rw | sort
  • --output-open-option, --output-oo <NAME>=<VALUE> — Dataset open option for output dataset (format specific).

May be repeated.

Added in version 3.12.
  • --overwrite — Allow program to overwrite existing target file or dataset. Otherwise, by default, gdal errors out if the target file or dataset already exists. ⚠️
  • --overwrite-layer — Whether overwriting the existing output vector layer is allowed.
  • --skip-errors — Whether failures to write feature(s) should be ignored. Note that this option sets the size of the transaction unit to one feature at a time, which may cause severe slowdown when inserting into databases. 😭
Added in version 3.12.
  • --update — Whether to open an existing output dataset in update mode.
  • --upsert — Variant of --append where the OGRLayer::UpsertFeature() operation is used to insert or update features instead of appending with OGRLayer::CreateFeature().

This is currently implemented only in a few drivers: GPKG — GeoPackage vector, Elasticsearch: Geographically Encoded Objects for Elasticsearch and MongoDBv3 (drivers that implement upsert expose the GDAL_DCAP_UPSERT capability).

The upsert operation uses the FID of the input feature, when it is set (and the FID column name is not the empty string), as the key to update existing features. It is crucial to make sure that the FID in the source and target layers are consistent. 🔥

For the GPKG driver, it is also possible to upsert features whose FID is unset or non-significant (the --unset-fid option of gdal vector edit can be used to ignore the FID from the source feature), when there is a UNIQUE column that is not the integer primary key.

Added in version 3.12.

💯 RETURN STATUS CODE 💯

The program returns status code 0 in case of success, and non-zero in case of error (non-blocking errors emitted as warnings are considered as a successful execution). 🫶

✨ EXAMPLES ✨

okay bestie, real talk, examples are where it all clicks 💖 let's go

🌸 Example 1: Output coverage errors in a TopoJSON file to a GeoJSON file

so you've got this remote TopoJSON situation and you want the problems dumped into a GeoJSON file? boom, one line, no cap:

$ gdal vector check-coverage "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/us-atlas@3/counties-albers-10m.json" --layer counties counties-errors.geojson

like… <italic>read the dataset, check it, spit out the errors</italic> and you're done. iconic behavior honestly 🫶

🦋 Example 2: Output invalid coverage features to the command-line as part of a pipeline

this one is for the girlies who love a pipeline (me, it's me 🙈). you chain read into check-coverage into info --features and the invalid features land right in your terminal. main character energy ✨

Bash

gdal vector pipeline \
    ! read "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/us-atlas@3/counties-albers-10m.json" --layer counties \
    ! check-coverage \
    ! info --features

PowerShell

gdal vector pipeline `
    ! read "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/us-atlas@3/counties-albers-10m.json" --layer counties `
    ! check-coverage `
    ! info --features
heads up bestie: see how Bash uses \ and PowerShell uses ` for the line continuations? don't mix those up or your shell will be so confused 😭 otherwise the commands are literally identical.

👑 AUTHOR 👑

this absolute legend wrote it:

  • Dan Baston <dbaston@gmail.com>

ngl, thank him for your coverage checks 💅

  • 1998-2026

that's the range, periodt. protect the intellectual property, babes.

and that's a wrap on the whole page, fr fr 🌈 you now know more about gdal vector check-coverage than like 99% of people, and honestly? that's such a slay 🎀 this was the GDAL-VECTOR-CHECK-COVERAGE(1) manual page, dated Aug 18, 2026 — go check those coverages, bestie, and stay iconic 🦋💖✨

📦 where this page comes from