convert a shapefile (.shp) to xml/json

Question

hi,

i'm working with a shapefile (.shp, .dbf, etc) and would like to convert it to xml. i'm on a mac, and am having trouble finding an application that will help me with the conversion. does anyone know of a method for converting this file format into an xml file?

thanks

Answer 1

GDAL is your friend. Use the ogr2ogr libraries, and here's a cheat sheet.

If you want a good GIS application, install QGIS and download the gdal converter plugin

Answer 2

I can also offer a very round about answer.

Put geoserver on your machine (you can download a self contained zip file)

Set up a datastore that points to your shapefile.

Set up a layer that points to your datastore

Go to the preview layers page and ask for a WFS as GML preview

Voila - an xml representation of your shapefile.

Answer 3

What dassouki said. Get GDAL from http://www.kyngchaos.com/software:frameworks. Use it to convert a shapefile to GeoJSON like this:

  $ ogr2ogr -f "GeoJSON" /tmp/world.json world_borders.shp world_borders
  $ cat /tmp/world.json
  {
  "type": "FeatureCollection",
  "features": [
  { "type": "Feature", "properties": { "CAT": 1.000000, "FIPS_CNTRY": "AA",
    "CNTRY_NAME": "Aruba", "AREA": 193.000000, "POP_CNTRY": 71218.000000 }, 
    "geometry": { "type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [ [ [ -69.882233, ...
   ...