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Concept
Shapefile
Summary
The shapefile format is a geospatial vector . It is developed and regulated by Esri as a mostly open specification for data interoperability among Esri and other GIS software products. The shapefile format can spatially describe vector features: points, lines, and polygons, representing, for example, water wells, rivers, and lakes. Each item usually has attributes that describe it, such as name or temperature.
The shapefile format is a digital vector storage format for storing geographic location and associated attribute information. This format lacks the capacity to store topological information. The shapefile format was introduced with ArcView GIS version 2 in the early 1990s. It is now possible to read and write geographical datasets using the shapefile format with a wide variety of software.
The shapefile format stores the geometry as primitive geometric shapes like points, lines, and polygons. These shapes, together with data attributes that are linked to each shape, create the representation of the geographic data. The term "shapefile" is quite common, but the format consists of a collection of files with a common filename prefix, stored in the same directory. The three mandatory files have s , , and .dbf. The actual shapefile relates specifically to the file, but alone is incomplete for distribution as the other supporting files are required. Legacy GIS software may expect that the filename prefix be limited to eight characters to conform to the DOS convention, though modern software applications accept files with longer names.
Official source
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