1OSMIUM-FILE-FORMATS(5)                                  OSMIUM-FILE-FORMATS(5)
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3
4

NAME

6       osmium-file-formats - OSM file formats known to Osmium
7

FILE TYPES

9       OSM uses three types of files for its main data:
10
11       Data files
12              These are the most common files.  They contain the OSM data from
13              a specific point in time.  This can either be a planet file con‐
14              taining  all OSM data or some kind of extract.  At most one ver‐
15              sion of every object (node, way, or relation)  is  contained  in
16              this  file.   Deleted  objects  are not in this file.  The usual
17              suffix used is .osm.
18
19       History files
20              These files contain not only the current version of  an  object,
21              but  their history, too.  So for any object (node, way, or rela‐
22              tion) there can be zero or more versions in this file.   Deleted
23              objects can also be in this file.  The usual suffix used is .osm
24              or .osh.  Because sometimes the same suffix is used as for  nor‐
25              mal data files (.osm) and because there is no clear indicator in
26              the header, it is not always clear what type of file you have in
27              front of you.
28
29       Change files
30              Sometimes  called  diff  files  or replication diffs these files
31              contain the changes between one state of the  OSM  database  and
32              another state.  Change files can contains several versions of an
33              object and also deleted objects.  The usual suffix used is .osc.
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35       All these files have in common that they contain  OSM  objects  (nodes,
36       ways,  and relations).  History files and change files can contain sev‐
37       eral versions of the same object and also deleted objects,  data  files
38       can’t.
39
40       Where  possible,  Osmium  commands can handle all file types.  For some
41       commands only some file types make sense.
42

FORMATS

44       The osmium command line tool supports all major OSM file  formats  plus
45       some more.  These are:
46
47       • The  classical XML format in the variants .osm (for data files), .osh
48         (for data files with history) and .osc (for change files).
49
50       • The PBF binary format (usually with suffix .osm.pbf or just .pbf).
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52       • The OPL format (usually with suffix .osm.opl or just .opl).
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54       • The O5M/O5C format (usually with suffix .o5m or .o5c) (reading only).
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56       • The “debug” format (usually with suffix .osm.debug) (writing only).
57
58       In addition files in all formats except PBF  can  be  compressed  using
59       gzip or bzip2.  (Add .gz or .bz2 suffixes, respectively.)
60

AUTODETECTION

62       Which format a file has is usually autodetected from the file name suf‐
63       fix.
64
65       If this doesn’t work, either because you  are  reading  from  STDIN  or
66       writing  to  STDOUT, or because you have an unusual file name, you have
67       to set the format manually.  You can also set the  format  manually  if
68       you want to specify special format options.
69
70       Most  osmium  commands  support the --input-format/-F and --output-for‐
71       mat/-f options to set the format.  They take a comma-separated list  of
72       arguments,  the  first  is the format, further arguments set additional
73       options.
74

SPECIAL FORMAT OPTIONS

76       The following options can be added when writing OSM files:
77
78       xml_change_format=true/false
79              Enable/disable XML change format.  Same as .osc.
80
81       force_visible_flag=true/false (default: false)
82              Force writing of visible flag, even for normal OSM XML files.
83
84       pbf_dense_nodes=true/false (default: true)
85              Enable/disable DenseNodes format for PBF files.
86
87       pbf_compression=none/zlib/lz4 (default: zlib)
88              Set compression type in PBF files.  zlib (or true)  is  the  de‐
89              fault  and  almost all files use this.  none (or false) disables
90              compression which will make writing files a bit faster, but  the
91              resulting files are 2 to 3 times bigger.  The lz4 compression is
92              not quite as good as zlib but much faster to compress and decom‐
93              press, it is currently not supported by most OSM file readers.
94
95       pbf_compression_level=...
96              Set compression level for PBF.  Available values and default de‐
97              pend on the compression type used, see the OSM File Formats Man‐
98              ual for details.
99
100       add_metadata=true/false/... (default: true)
101              Enable/disable  writing of object metadata such as changeset id,
102              username, etc.  Disabling this will make files  a  bit  smaller.
103              This  can  also be set to other values, see the OSM File Formats
104              Manual for details.
105
106       locations_on_ways=true/false (default: false)
107              Add node locations to way nodes.  (PBF, XML, OPL only.)
108
109       use_color=true/false (default: false)
110              Output with ANSI colors.  (DEBUG format only.)
111
112       add_crc32=true/false (default: false)
113              Add CRC32 checksum to all objects.  (DEBUG format only.)
114

EXAMPLES

116       Here are some examples:
117
118       pbf    PBF format.
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120       pbf,add_metadata=false
121              PBF format, don’t write metadata
122
123       osm.bz2
124              XML format, compressed with bzip2.
125
126       osc.gz OSM change file, compressed with gzip.
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128       osm.gz,xml_change_format=true
129              OSM change file, compressed with gzip.
130
131       osh.opl
132              OSM history file in OPL format.
133

SEE ALSO

135osmium(1)
136
137       • Osmium website (https://osmcode.org/osmium-tool/)
138
139       • OSM File Formats Manual (https://osmcode.org/file-formats-manual/)
140
142       Copyright (C) 2013-2023 Jochen Topf <jochen@topf.org>.
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144       License  GPLv3+:  GNU  GPL  version  3  or  later  <https://gnu.org/li
145       censes/gpl.html>.   This  is  free software: you are free to change and
146       redistribute it.  There is NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by law.
147

CONTACT

149       If you have any questions or  want  to  report  a  bug,  please  go  to
150       https://osmcode.org/contact.html
151

AUTHORS

153       Jochen Topf <jochen@topf.org>.
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157                                    1.15.0              OSMIUM-FILE-FORMATS(5)
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