Shapefile file extensions
- SHP-the main file that stores the Feature Geometry. required.
- . Shx-the index file that stores the index of the Feature Geometry. required.
- . DBF-The DBASE table that stores the attribute information of features. required.
There is a one-to-one
Relationship between geometry and attributes, which is based on record
Number. Attribute records in the DBASE file must be in the same order
Records in the main file.
- . SBN and. sbx-the files that store the spatial index of the features.
- . Fbn and. fbx-the files that store the spatial index of the features for shapefiles that are read-only.
- . Ain and. AIH-the files that store the attribute index of the active fields in a table or a theme's attribute table.
- . ATX-An. ATX file is created for each shapefile or DBASE
Attribute Index created in arccatalog. ArcView GIS 3.x attribute Indexes
For shapefiles and DBASE files are not used by ArcGIS. A new attribute
Indexing model has been developed for shapefiles and DBASE files.
- . Ixs-geocoding index for read-write shapefiles.
- . MXs-geocoding index for read-write shapefiles (ODB format ).
- . Prj-the file that stores the coordinate system information. Used by ArcGIS.
- . XML-metadata for ArcGIS-stores information about the shapefile.
Among them, the SHP, shx, and DBF Files are the most important and indispensable. Other files such as SBN, sbx, and prj are corresponding indexes or projection files.
