How can I extract the address information from a Compressed ESRI shapefile datasource?

Question

When I download the zip file from the website it contains files with the following extensions:

.dbf .prj .sbn .sbx .shp .shp.xml .shx

Is this is a common data file format that I download or purchase a converter? I think this is some kind of mapping data file but I all need are the addresses it contains to push into our existing database.

Specifically and related to programming. How can I setup a .NET Datasource to this group of files or just the .dbf file that actually contains the information?

Answer 1

It's a shapefile

There are links at the bottom of the page that may help you. My only experience with these type of files was using other proprietary (and expensive) software.

Answer 2

I'm guessing the address information you are looking for is stored in the dbf file. You can download the ESRI dBase driver from here.

There is sample code that shows this driver in use at http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=9&f=85&t=141422.

Answer 3

The format for the dbf files is like the old DBase III format. The shp files contains the shapes and the shx are some kind of indices.

Answer 4

Much thanks to everyone who provided information. I found a CodePlex C# project that was exactly what I needed. I did have to make one small modification which I posted back on the project discussion board which was for an unknown column type of "F". But the command line program DBF2CSV worked beautifully to create a well formated csv from the dbf file. After a few minutes with Excel I had it ready to import to our MySQL database.

The following project has a command line program that will convert a DBF file to CSV http://www.codeplex.com/fastdbf

Answer 5

You can open shapefile .dbf files in MS Access using DBase IV driver or directly in MS Excel (open as *.dbf)

:o)