Jump to the following:

Ordnance Survey logo

Discover Ordnance Survey

Skip primary navigation
Site Search
Skip secondary navigation

OS OpenData technical FAQs

Where are the world files for the OS Street View and Vector Map District products?

The files will be with the data ordered, whether on DVD or download. If for any reason they are not there then the files can be downloaded.

How can I update only the changed data in Code-Point Open?

There is a straightforward command prompt to extract and concatenate a number of .csv files to save having to go through the .csv files manually. Below are the steps to follow and it should only take around 2 minutes to concatenate the whole of Code-Point Open.

  1. Unzipping the data
    Code-Point Open is delivered zipped for speed of download. In order to use the data, it must first be unzipped. The user should save the zipped file to a location, and from here unzip it using WinZip, or an equivalent piece of software.

    All of the CSV data files can be found within the ‘data’ folder of the unzipped ‘Code-Point Open’ folder, e.g. C:\temp\Code-Point Open\data.
  2. Merging multiple CSV files
    After unzipping the files, it is beneficial to merge all CSV files together to ensure that the user does not have to follow the import procedure for each of the individual files, which can be time consuming and repetitive.
    Any technique the user is comfortable with can be used to merge all the individual CSV files in to a single file. This could include doing it manually using a text editor such as Notepad or TextPad (though this is very time consuming), or using a .bat batch file.

    To use the batch function:

    Copy the following text and paste it into a new Notepad document:
    copy *.csv outputfile.csv
    NB, outputfile.csv can be any user defined file name with the extension .csv, e.g. CPO_National.csv
    Save the Notepad document with the file extension .bat (e.g. merge.bat) in the same directory as the CSV files unzipped in Section 1.1. (e.g. C:\Temp\Code-Point Open\data).
    Close the .bat file, and navigate to the directory where it was saved (e.g. C:\Temp\Code-Point Open\data). Double click on the .bat file (i.e. merge.bat) and an MS-DOS window will appear, once the process is complete the MS-DOS screen will close automatically.
    If you navigate to the location where all of the CSV files were originally downloaded and where the .bat file was created, you will notice that there is a new CSV file with the user defined name inserted in the .bat file.

    Note:

    The CSV file that is created comes to approximately 150Mb, and 1.7 million records. If this is opened in Microsoft Excel only the first 65,536 records can be seen as the software cannot display more than this number of records.
Am I able to reuse ‘derived data’ created from the OS OpenData products?

Yes. The licence allows the reuse of the derived data created from any OS OpenData products for commercial and non-commercial use.

Useful resources

For general enquiries, complaints, feedback or suggestions, email: customerservices@ordnancesurvey.co.uk or call us on 08456 05 05 05