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 as
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.
其中shp, shx, dbf文件最为重要，缺一不可，其他诸如sbn,sbx,prj则是对应的索引或是投影文件，可以没有