[GIS] Is there Python 3 module to read .dbf files written by ArcGIS for Desktop

Question

I would like to know whether there are Python 3.x-compatible (preferably Python 3.3) modules to read the kind of .dbf files produced by ArcGIS for Desktop.

All the modules I found were only compatible with Python 2.x. I may have missed something, but I really couldn't find any which was compatible with Python 3.x.

Answer 1

As all Python programmers, I will

• first see the Python package Index for dbf files (it is specified if they are not compatible with Python 3 or Python 2). dbfread, for example, works with Python 2.x and Python 3.x.
• a geospatial modules like GDAL/OGR can be used but it needs to be compiled (Linux, Mac OS X). For the Windows users, Christoph Gohlke provides the Unofficial Windows Binaries for Python Extension Packages with GDAL/OGR (Python 2.x and Python 3.x)
• and a pure Python geospatial module like Pyshp (Python 2.x or 3.x) can also read dbf files
• and finally, If you know the structure of a dbf file ( Data File Header Structure for the dBASE Version 7 Table File , for example), it is not complicated to program a reader in pure Python with the struct module