Shapefile field problem

[Abe Gillespie]

Sorry, somehow I missed this.  I just tried it though and it seems to
work fine; the first record contains the field names with all the other
records following.  Albeit with a lot of (NULL)'s.  :)

-Abe

On Dec 7, 2004, at 11:17 AM, Jeff McKenna wrote:

> earlier in the thread i suggested dbfdump:
>
> Jeff McKenna wrote:
> > Frank would know way more about this than me...but are any of the
> > Shapelib utilities (http://shapelib.maptools.org/) useful for you?
> > (shpdump, dbfdump)
> >
> > jeff
>
>
>
>
>
> Abe Gillespie wrote:
>> Attached is the problematic shapefile.  I don't create it, I get it
>> from a customer.  However, if the need arises, I should be able to get
>> detailed information on how the shapefile comes to be.  Using the
>> following PHP script should reveal the problem.  I have not tried
>> DBFDUMP; I don't know where to get it.
>>
>>                for ($i = 0; $i < $map->numlayers; $i++)
>>                {
>>                        $l = $map->getLayer($i);
>>                        putBrLine($l->name.", type: ".$l->type);
>>                        if ($l->data != null)  // Shape files with
>> data.
>>                        {
>>                                $l->open();
>>                                $s = $l->getShape(-1, 0);
>>                                $vals = $s->values;
>>                                putBrLine("field count:
>> ".count($vals));
>>                                while ($fld = current($vals))
>>                                {
>>
>> putBrLine("&nbsp;&nbsp;".key($vals));
>>                                        next($vals);
>>                                }
>>                                $s->free();
>>                                $l->close();
>>                        }
>>                }
>>
>> Thanks.
>> -Abe
>>
>>
>>
>> On Dec 6, 2004, at 9:13 PM, Ed McNierney wrote:
>>
>>> Abe -
>>>
>>> Can you post the shapefile somewhere we can look at it?
>>>
>>> The field definitions for a shapefile (DBF) are stored in a separate
>>> header, describing each field; you can't get the field definitions
>>> from
>>> the first record.  In fact, you can't read the first record properly
>>> until *after* you've figured out the field definitions.
>>>
>>> Are you creating this shapefile yourself?  Could you be creating a
>>> defective file?  Have you tried running DBFDUMP on it?
>>>
>>>         - Ed
>>>
>>> Ed McNierney
>>> President and Chief Mapmaker
>>> TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
>>> 73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
>>> North Chelmsford, MA  01863
>>> Phone: +1 978 251-4242   Fax: +1 978 251-1396
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU]
>>> On
>>> Behalf Of Abe Gillespie
>>> Sent: Monday, December 06, 2004 8:14 PM
>>> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
>>> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Shapefile field problem
>>>
>>> It's a regular shapefile.  I think I've mostly narrowed it down.  It
>>> seems to me (though I may be completely off) that MapServer loads the
>>> first record of the DBF in order to get the field definitions.  If
>>> the
>>> first record has a string field and the value is zero length it won't
>>> give me the field (though the field count is always correct).  In
>>> addition, it won't give me any fields after that either.  If,
>>> however,
>>> I
>>> make sure that field has some value (a dash, an "x", whatever) then
>>> the
>>> field definition will come in correctly.  I still haven't narrowed
>>> down
>>> a problematic number field though.  Mind you, this is all done in
>>> MapServer PHP v. 4.2.0.
>>>
>>> -Abe
>>>
>>> On Dec 6, 2004, at 6:15 PM, Daniel Morissette wrote:
>>>
>>>> Abe Gillespie wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> A good amount of fields aren't showing up in MapServer for me.  I
>>>>> use
>>>
>>>
>>>>> the following PHP script to dump out all layers and their fields
>>>>> for
>>>>> debugging.  Does MapServer have problems with certain data types or
>>>>> certain values in a row?
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Are you using a tiled shapefile layer or is this a regular shapefile
>>>> layer?
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>  Daniel Morissette               dmorissette at dmsolutions.ca
>>>>  DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>
>>>
>
>
> --
> Jeff McKenna
> GIS Specialist
> DM Solutions Group Inc.
> http://www.dmsolutions.ca
>