Shapefile Attribute Data – Adding Attribute Data to Shapefile

attribute-tableshapefile

I can display a shapefile in openlayers but I need to add some attribute data.

I can open the dbf file in excel but there is no save as option in excel to the updated file as a dbf.

What is the best way (or software to use) to add attribute data to my shapefile?

Best Answer

Using QGIS you can edit your shapefile adding new columns and values. Just open the shapefile, go to Properties>Attributes and add new columns.

In newer versions of QGIS (2.x), 'Attributes' is called 'Fields'

Related Solutions

[GIS] Updating Lat/Longs and actual position of point shapefile using arcpy.UpdateCursor()

It sounds like you're updating some attributes of your features instead of updating the actual geometry. You can make changes to a feature's geometry using python but it's a couple extra lines of code. Check out this example:

import arcpy
shapeName = arcpy.Describe('c:/path/to/shp/update_geom.shp').shapeFieldName
rows = arcpy.UpdateCursor(r'c:/path/to/shp/update_geom.shp')
row = rows.next() # just one row...you could iterate through all rows
pnt = arcpy.Point(row.getValue(shapeName).getPart(0).X + 0.5, row.getValue(shapeName).getPart(0).Y + 0.5)
row.setValue(shapeName, pnt)
rows.updateRow(row)
del rows

That only updates one row but demonstrates how to update a point feature's geometry.

**Added code that loops over all rows.

import arcpy
shapeName = arcpy.Describe('c:/path/to/shp/update_geom.shp').shapeFieldName
rows = arcpy.UpdateCursor(r'c:/path/to/shp/update_geom.shp')
for row in rows:
  row = rows.next()
  pnt = arcpy.Point(row.getValue(shapeName).getPart(0).X + 0.5, row.getValue(shapeName).getPart(0).Y + 0.5)
  row.setValue(shapeName, pnt)
  rows.updateRow(row)
del rows

[GIS] Converting shapefile to CSV including attributes and geometry

Here's a simple script that uses the OGR python bindings:

import ogr,csv,sys

shpfile=r'C:\Temp\test.shp' #sys.argv[1]
csvfile=r'C:\Temp\test.csv' #sys.argv[2]

#Open files
csvfile=open(csvfile,'wb')
ds=ogr.Open(shpfile)
lyr=ds.GetLayer()

#Get field names
dfn=lyr.GetLayerDefn()
nfields=dfn.GetFieldCount()
fields=[]
for i in range(nfields):
    fields.append(dfn.GetFieldDefn(i).GetName())
fields.append('kmlgeometry')
csvwriter = csv.DictWriter(csvfile, fields)
try:csvwriter.writeheader() #python 2.7+
except:csvfile.write(','.join(fields)+'\n')

# Write attributes and kml out to csv
for feat in lyr:
    attributes=feat.items()
    geom=feat.GetGeometryRef()
    attributes['kmlgeometry']=geom.ExportToKML()
    csvwriter.writerow(attributes)

#clean up
del csvwriter,lyr,ds
csvfile.close()

EDIT: and another script to convert from your CSV to KML

import ogr,csv,sys,os
ogr.UseExceptions()

csvfile=r'C:\temp\test.csv' #sys.argv[1]
kmlfile=r'C:\temp\test.kml' #sys.argv[2]

csvreader=csv.reader(open(csvfile,'rb'))
headers=csvreader.next()

ds = ogr.GetDriverByName('KML').CreateDataSource(kmlfile)
lyr = ds.CreateLayer(os.path.splitext(os.path.basename(kmlfile))[0])

for field in headers[:-1]: #skip kmlgeometry
    field_def = ogr.FieldDefn(field)
    print lyr.CreateField(field_def)

for rec in csvreader:
    feat = ogr.Feature(lyr.GetLayerDefn())
    for i,field in enumerate(headers[:-1]): #skip kmlgeometry
        feat.SetField(field, rec[i])
    feat.SetGeometry(ogr.CreateGeometryFromGML(rec[-1]))
    lyr.CreateFeature(feat)

del lyr,ds

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[GIS] Updating Lat/Longs and actual position of point shapefile using arcpy.UpdateCursor()

[GIS] Converting shapefile to CSV including attributes and geometry

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