[postgis-users] shp2pgsql and shx

P Kishor punk.kish at gmail.com
Mon Jan 28 15:27:48 PST 2008


On 1/28/08, Martin Davis <mbdavis at refractions.net> wrote:
> Actually the SHP and DBF files are "linked" simply by the order of the
> records in the files.  So the SHX file isn't needed to read the data.
> It is only required if you want to read the data through the index.

You are absolutely correct on both counts. I realized my misleading
message after I had sent it as I have been happily reading DBF files
and modifying them using Perl directly and the parent Shapefile has
been ok. Thanks for pointing it out.

To the OP -- one of them (between SHP and DBF) is indexed starting at
0 and the other one starting at 1 (I always forget which one is
which).

Perhaps shp2pgsql does exactly that... read the attributes for each
shape via the index.

>
> P Kishor wrote:
> > On 1/28/08, Andrea Maschio <andrea.maschio at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >>  Hello all, is it normal that trying to convert a shape into sql with
> >> shp2pgsql I have an error stating that i need the .shx index file? Is there
> >> an option for importing having only the .shp file?
> >>
> >>  Thanks
> >>
> >>  Andrea Maschio
> >>
> >>
> >
> > The .shx file is the link between the geometry (.shp) and the
> > attributes (.dbf). These three are the minimum necessary components of
> > an ESRI Shapefile. If your .shx/.dbf are missing then you have any
> > incomplete Shapefile.
> > _______________________________________________
> > postgis-users mailing list
> > postgis-users at postgis.refractions.net
> > http://postgis.refractions.net/mailman/listinfo/postgis-users
> >
> >
>
> --
> Martin Davis
> Senior Technical Architect
> Refractions Research, Inc.
> (250) 383-3022
>
>


-- 
Puneet Kishor http://punkish.eidesis.org/
Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies http://www.nelson.wisc.edu/
Open Source Geospatial Foundation (OSGeo) http://www.osgeo.org/



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