[Geojson] FW: Features without geometry

Christopher Schmidt crschmidt at metacarta.com
Wed Oct 3 06:56:24 PDT 2007


On Wed, Oct 03, 2007 at 08:15:40AM -0400, Andrew Turner wrote:
> So, I'm still not clear if/how GeoJSON is used to just 'add'
> geographic content to larger/richer JSON content. 

The GeoJSON geometry objects can be used in any other JSON.

> Can an example be
> added for clarity - b/c I will definitely be mixing geographic &
> non-geographic content together.

I mentioned this on IRC, but if you can provide a use case -- specific
example JSON that you don't understand how to add geo to -- then I'll
give an example of how I would do it. 

> Also - regarding omitting vs. null geometry. KML ... valid without any
> geometry element

It is?

"In KML, a <Placemark> can contain one or more geometry elements, such
as a LineString, Polygon, or Model." 
-- http://code.google.com/apis/kml/documentation/kml_tut.html


> and RSS/Atom both are
> valid without any geometry element. 

JSON is valid without any geometry element. GeoJSON is not. Atom is
valid without geometry: GeoRSS is not 'georss' without the geometry.
(Unless there is a claim that every RSS feed on the web is 'valid
GeoRSS' :))  

> So it seems odd that GeoJSON would
> break that mold to require a null-geometry.

I don't think it's breaking the mold, so far as I can tell.

Nothing is preventing anyone from using the following JSON:

{ 
  "type": "Feature",
  "properties": {"foo":"bar"}
} 

But calling that GeoJSON seems strange to me.

Regards,
-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta



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