Provided by: osmium-tool_1.14.0-1_amd64 
NAME
osmium-export - export OSM data
SYNOPSIS
osmium export [OPTIONS] OSM-FILE
DESCRIPTION
The OSM data model with its nodes, ways, and relations is very different from the data model usually used
for geodata with features having point, linestring, or polygon geometries (or their cousins, the
multipoint, multilinestring, or multipolygon geometries).
The export command transforms OSM data into a more usual GIS data model. Nodes will be translated into
points and ways into linestrings or polygons (if they are closed ways). Multipolygon and boundary
relations will be translated into multipolygons. This transformation is not loss-less, especially
information in non-multipolygon, non-boundary relations is lost.
All tags are preserved in this process. Note that most GIS formats (such as Shapefiles, etc.) do not
support arbitrary tags. Transformation into other GIS formats will need extra steps mapping tags to a
limited list of attributes. This is outside the scope of this command.
The osmium export command has to keep an index of the node locations in memory or in a temporary file on
disk while doing its work. There are several different ways it can do that which have different
advantages and disadvantages. The default is good enough for most cases, but see the osmium-index-
types(5) man page for details.
Objects with invalid geometries are silently omitted from the output. This is the case for ways with
less than two nodes or closed ways or relations that can’t be assembled into a valid (multi)polygon. See
the options --show-errors/-e and --stop-on-error/-E for how to modify this behaviour.
The input file will be read twice (once for the relations, once for nodes and ways), so this command can
not read its input from STDIN.
This command will not work on full history files.
This command will work with negative IDs on OSM objects (for instance on files created with JOSM).
OPTIONS
-c, --config=FILE
Read configuration from specified file.
-C, --print-default-config
Print the default config to STDOUT. Useful if you want to change it and not write the whole thing
manually. If you use this option all other options are ignored.
-e, --show-errors
Output any geometry errors on STDERR. This includes ways with a single node or areas that can’t
be assembled from multipolygon relations. This output is not suitable for automated use, there
are other tools that can create very detailed errors reports that are better for that (see
https://osmcode.org/osm-area-tools/).
-E, --stop-on-error
Usually geometry errors (due to missing node locations or broken polygons) are ignored and the
features are omitted from the output. If this option is set, any error will immediately stop the
program.
--geometry-types=TYPES
Specify the geometry types that should be written out. Usually all created geometries (points,
linestrings, and (multi)polygons) are written to the output, but you can restrict the types using
this option. TYPES is a comma-separated list of the types (“point”, “linestring”, and “polygon”).
-a, --attributes=ATTRS
In addition to tags, also export attributes specified in this comma-separated list. By default,
none are exported. See the ATTRIBUTES section below for the known attributes list and an
explanation.
-i, --index-type=TYPE
Set the index type. For details see the osmium-index-types(5) man page.
-I, --show-index-types
Shows a list of available index types. For details see the osmium-index-types(5) man page. If
you use this options all other options are ignored.
-n, --keep-untagged
If this is set, features without any tags will be in the exported data. By default these features
will be omitted from the output. Tags are the OSM tags, not attributes (like id, version, uid,
...) without the tags removed by the exclude_tags or include_tags settings.
-r, --omit-rs
Do not print the RS (0x1e, record separator) character when using the GeoJSON Text Sequence
Format. Ignored for other formats. THIS OPTION IS DEPRECATED, PLEASE USE “-x
print_record_separator=false” INSTEAD.
-u, --add-unique-id=TYPE
Add a unique ID to each feature. TYPE can be either counter in which case the first feature will
get ID 1, the next ID 2 and so on. The type of object does not matter in this case. Or the TYPE
is type_id in which case the ID is a string, the first character is the type of object (`n' for
nodes, `w' for linestrings created from ways, and `a' for areas created from ways and/or
relations, after that there is a unique ID based on the original OSM object ID(s). If the input
file has negative IDs, this can create IDs such as `w-12'. In spaten exports the ID is written
into the @fid field. For counter the value will be an integer, for type_id it will be a string.
-x, --format-option=OPTION(=VALUE)
Set an output format option. The options available depend on the output format. See the OUTPUT
FORMAT OPTIONS section for available options. If the VALUE is not set, the OPTION will be set to
“true”. If needed you can specify this option multiple times to set several options. Options set
on the command line overwrite options set in the config file.
COMMON OPTIONS
-h, --help
Show usage help.
-v, --verbose
Set verbose mode. The program will output information about what it is doing to STDERR.
--progress
Show progress bar. Usually a progress bar is only displayed if STDOUT and STDERR are detected to
be TTY. With this option a progress bar is always shown. Note that a progress bar will never be
shown when reading from STDIN or a pipe.
--no-progress
Do not show progress bar. Usually a progress bar is displayed if STDOUT and STDERR are detected
to be a TTY. With this option the progress bar is suppressed. Note that a progress bar will
never be shown when reading from STDIN or a pipe.
INPUT OPTIONS
-F, --input-format=FORMAT
The format of the input file(s). Can be used to set the input format if it can’t be autodetected
from the file name(s). This will set the format for all input files, there is no way to set the
format for some input files only. See osmium-file-formats(5) or the libosmium manual for details.
OUTPUT OPTIONS
-f, --output-format=FORMAT
The format of the output file. Can be used to set the output file format if it can’t be
autodetected from the output file name. See the OUTPUT FORMATS section for a list of formats.
--fsync
Call fsync after writing the output file to force flushing buffers to disk.
-o, --output=FILE
Name of the output file. Default is `-' (STDOUT).
-O, --overwrite
Allow an existing output file to be overwritten. Normally osmium will refuse to write over an
existing file.
CONFIG FILE
The config file is in JSON format. The top-level is an object which contains the following optional
names:
• attributes: An object specifying which attributes of OSM objects to export. See the ATTRIBUTES
section.
• format_options: An object specifying output format options. The options available depend on the output
format. See the OUTPUT FORMAT OPTIONS section for available options. These options can also be set
using the command line option --format-option/-x.
• linear_tags: An expression specifying tags that should be treated as linear tags. See below for
details and also look at the AREA HANDLING section.
• area_tags: An expression specifying tags that should be treated as area tags. See below for details
and also look at the AREA HANDLING section.
• exclude_tags: A list of tag expressions. Tags matching these expressions are excluded from the output.
See the FILTER EXPRESSION section.
• include_tags: A list of tag expressions. Tags matching these expressions are included in the output.
See the FILTER EXPRESSION section.
The area_tags and linear_tags can have the following values:
true All tags match. (An empty list [] can also be used to mean the same, but this use is deprecated
because it can be confusing.)
false No tags match.
Array The array contains one or more expressions as described in the FILTER EXPRESSION section.
null If the area_tags or linear_tags is set to null or not set at all, the inverse of the other setting
is used. So if you do not set the linear_tags but have some expressions in area_tags, areas will
be created for all objects matching those expressions and linestrings for everything else. This
can be simpler, because you only have to keep one list, but in cases where an object can be
interpreted as both an area and a linestring, only one interpretation will be used.
The exclude_tags and include_tags options are mutually exclusive. If you want to just exclude some tags
but leave most tags untouched, use the exclude_tags setting. If you only want a defined list of tags,
use include_tags.
When no config file is specified, the following settings are used:
{
"attributes": {
"type": false,
"id": false,
"version": false,
"changeset": false,
"timestamp": false,
"uid": false,
"user": false,
"way_nodes": false
},
"format_options": {
},
"linear_tags": true,
"area_tags": true,
"exclude_tags": [],
"include_tags": []
}
FILTER EXPRESSIONS
A filter expression specifies a tag or tags that should be matched in the data.
Some examples:
amenity
Matches all objects with the key “amenity”.
highway=primary
Matches all objects with the key “highway” and value “primary”.
highway!=primary
Matches all objects with the key “highway” and a value other than “primary”.
type=multipolygon,boundary
Matches all objects with key “type” and value “multipolygon” or “boundary”.
name,name:de=Kastanienallee,Kastanienstrasse
Matches any object with a “name” or “name:de” tag with the value “Kastanienallee” or
“Kastanienstrasse”.
addr:* Matches all objects with any key starting with “addr:”
name=*Paris
Matches all objects with a name that contains the word “Paris”.
If there is no equal sign (“=”) in the expression only keys are matched and values can be anything. If
there is an equal sign (“=”) in the expression, the key is to the left and the value to the right. An
exclamation sign (“!”) before the equal sign means: A tag with that key, but not the value(s) to the
right of the equal sign. A leading or trailing asterisk (“*”) can be used for substring or prefix
matching, respectively. Commas (“,”) can be used to separate several keys or values.
All filter expressions are case-sensitive. There is no way to escape the special characters such as “=”,
“*” and “,”. You can not mix comma-expressions and “*”-expressions.
ATTRIBUTES
All OSM objects (nodes, ways, and relations) have attributes, areas inherit their attributes from the
ways and/or relations they were created from. The attributes known to osmium export are:
• type (`node', `way', or `relation')
• id (64 bit object ID)
• version (version number)
• changeset (changeset ID)
• timestamp (time of object creation in seconds since Jan 1 1970)
• uid (user ID)
• user (user name)
• way_nodes (ways only, array with node IDs)
For areas, the type will be way or relation if the area was created from a closed way or a multipolygon
or boundary relation, respectively. The id for areas is the id of the closed way or the multipolygon or
boundary relation.
By default the attributes will not be in the export, because they are not necessary for most uses of OSM
data. If you are interested in some (or all) attributes, add an attributes object to the config file.
Add a member for each attribute you are interested in, the value can be either false (do not output this
attribute), true (output this attribute with the attribute name prefixed by the @ sign) or any string, in
which case the string will be used as the attribute name.
Another option is to specify attributes list in a comma-separated string for the --attributes/-a command-
line option. This way you cannot control column names, but also you won’t have to create a config file.
Depending on your choice of values for the attributes objects, attributes can have the same name as tag
keys. If this is the case, the conflicting tag is silently dropped. So if there is a tag “@id=foo” and
you have set id to true in the attributes object, the tag will not show up in the output.
Note that the id is not necessarily unique. Even the combination type and id is not unique, because a
way may end up in the output file as LineString and as (Multi)Polygon. See the --add-unique-id/-u option
for a unique ID.
AREA HANDLING
Multipolygon relations will be assembled into multipolygon geometries forming areas. Some closed ways
will also form areas. Here are the detailed rules:
Non-closed way
A non-closed way (with the last node location not the same as the first node location) is always
(regardless of any tags) a linestring, not an area.
Relation
A relation tagged type=multipolygon or type=boundary is always (regardless of any tags) assembled
into an area.
Closed way
For a closed way (with the last node location the same as the first node location) the tags are
checked: If the way has an area=yes tag, an area is created. If the way has an area=no tag, a
linestring is created. An area tag with a value other than yes or no is ignored. The
configuration settings area_tags and linear_tags can be used to augment the area check. If any of
the tags matches the area_tags, an area is created. If any of the tags matches the linear_tags, a
linestring is created. If both match, an area and a linestring is created. This is important
because some objects have tags that make them both, an area and a linestring.
OUTPUT FORMATS
The following output formats are supported:
• geojson (alias: json): GeoJSON (RFC7946). The output file will contain a single FeatureCollection
object. This is the default format.
• geojsonseq (alias: jsonseq): GeoJSON Text Sequence (RFC8142). Each line (beginning with a RS (0x1e,
record separator) and ending in a linefeed character) contains one GeoJSON object. Used for streaming
GeoJSON.
• pg: PostgreSQL COPY text format. One line per object containing the WGS84 geometry as WKB, the tags in
JSON format and, optionally, more columns for id and attributes. You have to create the table
manually, then use the PostgreSQL COPY command to import the data. Enable verbose output to see the
SQL commands needed to create the table and load the data.
• spaten: Spaten, a binary format that is suitable for large data sets.
• text (alias: txt): A simple text format with the geometry in WKT format followed by the comma-delimited
tags. This is mainly intended for debugging at the moment. THE FORMAT MIGHT CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE!
OUTPUT FORMAT OPTIONS
• print_record_separator (default: true). Set to false to not print the RS (0x1e, record separator)
character when using the GeoJSON Text Sequence Format. Ignored for other formats.
• tags_type (default: jsonb). Set to hstore to use HSTORE format instead of JSON/JSONB when using the Pg
Format. Ignored in other formats.
DIAGNOSTICS
osmium export exits with exit code
0 if everything went alright,
1 if there was an error processing the data, or
2 if there was a problem with the command line arguments.
MEMORY USAGE
osmium export will usually keep all node locations and all objects needed for assembling the areas in
memory. For larger data files, this can need several tens of GBytes of memory. See the osmium-index-
types(5) man page for details.
EXAMPLES
Export into GeoJSON format:
osmium export data.osm.pbf -o data.geojson
Use a config file and export into GeoJSON Text Sequence format:
osmium export data.osm.pbf -o data.geojsonseq -c export-config.json
SEE ALSO
• osmium(1), osmium-file-formats(5), osmium-index-types(5), osmium-add-node-locations-to-ways(1)
• Osmium website (https://osmcode.org/osmium-tool/)
• GeoJSON (http://geojson.org/)
• RFC7946 (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc7946)
• RFC8142 (https://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8142)
• Line delimited JSON (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JSON_Streaming#Line_delimited_JSON)
• Spaten Geo Format (https://thomas.skowron.eu/spaten/)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 2013-2022 Jochen Topf <jochen@topf.org>.
License GPLv3+: GNU GPL version 3 or later <https://gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html>. This is free software:
you are free to change and redistribute it. There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
CONTACT
If you have any questions or want to report a bug, please go to https://osmcode.org/contact.html
AUTHORS
Jochen Topf <jochen@topf.org>.
1.14.0 OSMIUM-EXPORT(1)