Main gdal entry point

Added in version 3.11.

Main "gdal" entry point.

Synopsis

Usage: gdal <COMMAND> [OPTIONS]
where <COMMAND> is one of:
  - convert:  Convert a dataset (shortcut for 'gdal raster convert' or 'gdal vector convert').
  - dataset:  Commands to manage datasets.
  - driver:   Command for driver specific operations.
  - info:     Return information on a dataset (shortcut for 'gdal raster info' or 'gdal vector info').
  - mdim:     Multidimensional commands.
  - pipeline: Process a dataset applying several steps.
  - raster:   Raster commands.
  - vector:   Vector commands.
  - vsi:      GDAL Virtual System Interface (VSI) commands.

Common Options:
  -h, --help              Display help message and exit
  --json-usage            Display usage as JSON document and exit
  --config <KEY>=<VALUE>  Configuration option [may be repeated]

Options:
  --version               Display GDAL version and exit
  --drivers               Display driver list as JSON document

'gdal <FILENAME>' can also be used as a shortcut for 'gdal info <FILENAME>'.
And 'gdal read <FILENAME> ! ...' as a shortcut for 'gdal pipeline <FILENAME> ! ...'.

Return status code

The program returns status code 0 in case of success, and non-zero in case of error (non-blocking errors emitted as warnings are considered as a successful execution).

Examples

Example 1: Display the GDAL version

$ gdal --version
GDAL 3.13.1 "Iowa City", released 2026/06/20 (debug build)

Example 2: Getting information on the file utm.tif (with JSON output)

$ gdal info utm.tif

Example 3: Converting file utm.tif to GeoPackage raster

$ gdal convert utm.tif utm.gpkg

Example 4: Getting information on all available commands and subcommands as a JSON document.

$ gdal --json-usage

Example 5: Getting list of all formats supported by the current GDAL build, as text

$ gdal --formats