NAME

       osmium-file-formats - OSM file formats known to Osmium

FILE TYPES

       OSM uses three types of files for its main data:

       Data files
              These  are  the most common files.  They contain the OSM data from a specific point in time.  This
              can either be a planet file containing all OSM data or some kind of extract.  At most one  version
              of  every  object  (node, way, or relation) is contained in this file.  Deleted objects are not in
              this file.  The usual suffix used is .osm.

       History files
              These files contain not only the current version of an object, but their history, too.  So for any
              object  (node, way, or relation) there can be zero or more versions in this file.  Deleted objects
              can also be in this file.  The usual suffix used is .osm or  .osh.   Because  sometimes  the  same
              suffix  is  used  as  for  normal data files (.osm) and because there is no clear indicator in the
              header, it is not always clear what type of file you have in front of you.

       Change files
              Sometimes called diff files or replication diffs these files contain the changes between one state
              of  the  OSM  database and another state.  Change files can contains several versions of an object
              and also deleted objects.  The usual suffix used is .osc.

       All these files have in common that they contain OSM objects (nodes, ways, and relations).  History files
       and  change  files  can  contain several versions of the same object and also deleted objects, data files
       can’t.

       Where possible, Osmium commands can handle all file types.  For some commands only some file  types  make
       sense.

FORMATS

       The osmium command line tool supports all major OSM file formats plus some more.  These are:

       • The  classical XML format in the variants .osm (for data files), .osh (for data files with history) and
         .osc (for change files).

       • The PBF binary format (usually with suffix .osm.pbf or just .pbf).

       • The OPL format (usually with suffix .osm.opl or just .opl).

       • The O5M/O5C format (usually with suffix .o5m or .o5c) (reading only).

       • The “debug” format (usually with suffix .osm.debug) (writing only).

       In addition files in all formats except PBF can be compressed using gzip or  bzip2.   (Add  .gz  or  .bz2
       suffixes, respectively.)

AUTODETECTION

       Which format a file has is usually autodetected from the file name suffix.

       If this doesn’t work, either because you are reading from STDIN or writing to STDOUT, or because you have
       an unusual file name, you have to set the format manually.  You can also set the format manually  if  you
       want to specify special format options.

       Most  osmium  commands  support  the  --input-format/-F and --output-format/-f options to set the format.
       They take a comma-separated list of arguments, the first is the format, further arguments set  additional
       options.

SPECIAL FORMAT OPTIONS

       The following options can be added when writing OSM files:

       xml_change_format=true/false
              Enable/disable XML change format.  Same as .osc.

       force_visible_flag=true/false (default: false)
              Force writing of visible flag, even for normal OSM XML files.

       pbf_dense_nodes=true/false (default: true)
              Enable/disable DenseNodes format for PBF files.

       pbf_compression=none/zlib/lz4 (default: zlib)
              Set  compression  type in PBF files.  zlib (or true) is the default and almost all files use this.
              none (or false) disables compression which will make writing files a bit faster, but the resulting
              files  are  2 to 3 times bigger.  The lz4 compression is not quite as good as zlib but much faster
              to compress and decompress, it is currently not supported by most OSM file readers.

       pbf_compression_level=...
              Set compression level for PBF.  Available values and default depend on the compression type  used,
              see the OSM File Formats Manual for details.

       add_metadata=true/false/... (default: true)
              Enable/disable  writing  of  object  metadata such as changeset id, username, etc.  Disabling this
              will make files a bit smaller.  This can also be set to other values, see  the  OSM  File  Formats
              Manual for details.

       locations_on_ways=true/false (default: false)
              Add node locations to way nodes.  (PBF, XML, OPL only.)

       use_color=true/false (default: false)
              Output with ANSI colors.  (DEBUG format only.)

       add_crc32=true/false (default: false)
              Add CRC32 checksum to all objects.  (DEBUG format only.)

EXAMPLES

       Here are some examples:

       pbf    PBF format.

       pbf,add_metadata=false
              PBF format, don’t write metadata

       osm.bz2
              XML format, compressed with bzip2.

       osc.gz OSM change file, compressed with gzip.

       osm.gz,xml_change_format=true
              OSM change file, compressed with gzip.

       osh.opl
              OSM history file in OPL format.

SEE ALSO

       • osmium(1)

       • Osmium website (https://osmcode.org/osmium-tool/)

       • OSM File Formats Manual (https://osmcode.org/file-formats-manual/)

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2013-2023 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>.

                                                     1.16.0                               OSMIUM-FILE-FORMATS(5)