[postgis-users] Shapefiles exported from PostGIS and ESRI ArcView 9 compatibility

[Stephen Woodbridge]

On 7/21/2011 3:23 AM, Ben Madin wrote:
> G'dat all,
>
> We have a client (potential client) who wants some mapping done and
> the maps returned in shapefile format. In the contract they insist on
> specifying that the shapefiles are compatible with "ESRI's ArcView
> version 9" (their words, not mine).
>
> I don't have "ESRI's ArcView version 9", and don't intend on spending
> that sort of money (more than the contract is worth). However, I'm
> sure that if what we send back doesn't open in "ESRI's ArcView
> version 9" it will become our problem.
>
> Does anyone have any reason to suspect that a shapefile created using
> valid OGC geometry in PostGIS and exported using pgsql2shp would not
> or might not work on "ESRI's ArcView version 9"?
>
> Are there any issues that someone who is across platforms can help me
> with?
>
> (I routinely use shapefiles created using valid OGC geometry in
> PostGIS and exported using pgsql2shp in QGIS and MapServer and send
> them to other people, so I have no reason to be concerned except that
> the client insists on this line remaining the contract!)

Hi Ben,

I use ArcGIS Explorer and it will not open shapefiles that do not have 
.prj file. What I do in this case if to just write a script that 
generates that appropriate .prj that I need. The other option that might 
be work better for you is to use ogr2ogr to export the postgis table 
into a shapefile as I believe that will write the .prj file appropriately.

-Steve W