If I want to create a GDAL PAM statistics file with the command gdalinfo -stats from a GRIB file, e.g. needed for DynamicColorMapping, GDAL only creates the statistics internally inside the sourcefile. Is it possible to force gdalinfo -stats to create the additional file (.aux.xml)?
A way to do this is programmatically with Python and to tinker with the XML, but that doesn't fit my needs.
As a workaround you can use command
gdalinfo -stats -hist input.tif
Selecting the histogram option triggers the creation of input.tif.aux.xml file.
EDIT
I have learned that actually there is no need to use the -hist workaround. There is a GDAL configuration option GDAL_PAM_ENABLED that forces the creation of the .aux.xml file. Usage example:
gdalinfo test.tif -stats --config GDAL_PAM_ENABLED TRUE
The following isn't a direct GDAL solution for your question, but it might help. The Orfeo Toolbox command otbcli_ComputeImagesStatistics can be used to generate raster band statistics and output them to an XML file. For instance:
otbcli_ComputeImagesStatistics -il input_image.tif -out output.xml
