FAQ

Standalone python scripts

Because geofileops makes extensive use of multiprocessing, it is a good idea to always use the following construct in standalone scripts.

import geofileops as gfo

if __name__ == "__main__":
    gfo. ...

Not using this can lead to the following RuntimeError being thrown: An attempt has been made to start a new process before the current process has finished its bootstrapping phase. You can find more details on why this is needed in the python multiprocessing docs

Supported file formats

The spatial functionalities of geofileops are tested on geopackage and shapefile input/output files. However, geopackage is highly recommended because it will offer better performance in geofileops as well as for the reasons listed here: www.switchfromshapefile.org.

Most general file/layer operations can be used on all vector formats supported by GDAL.

Runtime configuration options

GeofileOps supports some runtime configuration options that can be set using environment variables:

• GFO_IO_ENGINE: the IO engine to use when reading and writing GeoDataFrames. Valid options are “pyogrio” and “fiona”. Defaults to “pyogrio”.

• GFO_REMOVE_TEMP_FILES: whether to remove temp files being created after use, e.g. for debugging purposes. Valid values are e.g. “TRUE” or “FALSE”. Defaults to True.

You can use the TempEnv context manager if you want to set a configuration option temporarily:

import geofileops as gfo

if __name__ == "__main__":
    with gfo.TempEnv("GFO_REMOVE_TEMP_FILES", "False"):
        gfo. ...