rl2sniff(1)

💖 rl2sniff — the RasterLite2 sniffer, bestie edition 💖

okay so real quick: this is the manual for rl2sniff, part of the rl2sniff(1) family (that's the manual page name, yes it's a whole thing, we don't question it). sit down, grab a strawberry drink 🍓, and let me tell you about the little tool that sniffs your rasters so you don't have to.

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✨ NAME ✨

rl2sniff — sniffer tool for RasterLite2. yes. it sniffs. that's the vibe. 🦋

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🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

rl2sniff [ARGLIST]

that's it. that's the whole summoning ritual. ARGLIST goes in, report comes out. slay.

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👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

okay so rl2sniff is a sniffer tool for RasterLite2, and here's the situation it was born for: sometimes you're handling a relevant number of raster images — and they might be from totally different origins and have totally different technical characteristics, no cap — and it is not an easy task. especially (most notably, even) when your images are dispersed into many different folders. the chaos. the drama. 😭

so the rl2sniff CLI tool is exactly intended to offer a significant help in organizing and planning any preliminary activity you need in order to create and populate your RasterLite2's Coverages. it's giving project manager energy, honestly.

here's what it does: rl2sniff will examine files containing a raster image, and will then create a report showing the more relevant characteristics for each one. and the supported arguments are the followings:

• arguments specifying the intended target:
  • -src pathname: will examine just a single input raster image.
  • -dir pathname: will explore a whole directory aka folder.
  • Please note: -src and -dir are mutually exclusive options. pick one bestie, you can't have both, it's giving toxic situationship 💀
  • -ext extension: combined with -dir will restrict the search to a specific raster format.
  • if no target is explicitly selected (e.g. when there are no arguments at all) then the current working directory will be intended by default.
• -wf: any georeferencing information will be always retrieved from a companion worldfile ⟨http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_file⟩. Please note: in this case any georeferencing found in the worldfile will always override any other information eventually found e.g. within a GeoTIFF image. worldfile said it first, worldfile wins, periodt. 💅
• -md5: the output report will include an MD5 checksum ⟨http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MD5⟩ computed for each raster file. Please note: computing the MD5 checksums could require a substantial amount of time, most notably when many hundredth huge-sized files are to be scanned. so like… go make a snack, this one's gonna take a minute 🫶

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🌸 the output report 🌸

the output report. the report created by rl2sniff simply corresponds to a TXT/TAB being printed on the stdout file. classic. clean. printed straight to stdout like it owns the place.

the report's columns are as follows:

• columns always supported for both georeferenced and non-georeferenced rasters:
  • image_format: e.g. GeoTIFF, TIFF+TFW or ASCII Grid.
  • MD5_checksum: may be NULL is the corresponding option wasn't activated.
  • image_path: the absolute path leading to the raster file.
  • width and height: horizontal and vertical dimensions (in pixels).
  • sample_type, pixel_type and bands: e.g. UINT8, RGB, 3.
  • no_data: value corresponding to NO-DATA pixels (currently supported only for ASCII Grids).
  • compression: e.g. DEFLATE or FAX4; NONE if uncompressed.
• columns supported only for raster of the georeferenced type:
  • srid: the declared SRID value; -1 if unknown / unspecified.
  • x_resolution and y_resolution: horizontal and vertical pixel resolution.
  • min_x, min_y, max_x and max_y: extreme points of the raster's bounding box aka BBOX.

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💅 OPTIONS 💅

one bullet per flag, bestie, no skipping, we read them all:

• -h, --help — print usage information. the "help me help you" button, iconic.
• -src pathname, --src-path pathname — single Image/Raster path. just the one file, the solo act. ⭐
• -dir pathname, --dir-path pathname — directory path. the whole folder gets the vibe check.
• -ext extension, --file-ext extension — file extension (e.g. .tif). filter that search down to exactly one format. 🎀
• -wf, --worldfile — requires a Worldfile. worldfile or bust.
• -md5, --md5-checksum — enabling MD5 checksums. slow but thorough, and honestly? worth it. 🧚

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heads up bestie: -src and -dir cannot be combined — they're mutually exclusive. and -md5 can be slow when there are a lot of huge files. that's not me being dramatic, that's the manual. 😌

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and that's the whole page!! written and dated 06 February 2026, shipped as part of the rl2sniff(1) manual, and if you made it this far you're literally the main character of raster organization. go sniff something. 💖✨🦋