Editing shape files...or altering output.

[Jerl Simpson]

Hello,

I'm having a display issue that I need to work out.  I am wondering
the best way to go about it.  Here's the issue.
I have an ESRI shape file with US roads.  In this file, the US
highways are listed as, "United States Highway 400".  When you have a
lot of those on the map, it gets very messy. I would like to replace
"United States Highway 400" with "US 400" or even "US Hwy 400".
Is it best to change the .dbf file?  Or can I do this on the fly?
I have no idea how to do this on the fly, but here are my thoughts on
the dbf file.

Use shapelib to open and read the dbf file, read in the values,
compare, change if needed, then spit out to a new dbf file.
Currently I would work at writing something to do this, after much
reading of the documentation.
Has anyone done this before?  I suspect there might be a utility to do
just this type of thing.

Thanks in advance,

Jerl