openstreetmap - How to overcome field truncation when converting OSM to shapefile with QGIS?

I am trying to convert an OpenStreetMap file into a shapefile, but I am having problems with the "tags" field being cut-off after 80 characters. With QGIS 1.4, I use the OpenStreetMap plugin to 'Load OSM from file'. The file loads in QGIS. If I right-click on the 'lines' layer and select 'Save as shapefile', I end up with a shapefile but one that has an 80 char limit on "tags". How can I increase this 80 character limit?

Answer

You can also import the data into a PostgreSQL/Postgis database and you will not have that limit. Use the osm2pgsql utility

http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Osm2pgsql