[GIS] Why does QGIS generate Shapefiles without DBF

dbfqgisshapefile

I need to output shapefiles for archiving, which requires generating .shp, .shx and .dbf files. When I save a layer as a shapefile it generates the first two, but not the dbf. All the help I can find tells me how to import a dbf file but not export.

The dbf files will need to contain ID, X and Y fields.

Any ideas?

Best Answer

If you don't have a .dbf file, you probably have an empty attribute table.

To get the X and Y of a point layer, you have to add them to the attribute table using the field calculator. $X and $Y from the Geometry section will add the coordinate values. Be sure to change the field type to real, and set the precision greater than zero if using degrees.

For a line or polygon layer, you can export the coordinates of the line vertices with the mmqgis plugin to a CSV file.

Related Solutions

[GIS] How to export shapefile using Leaflet

There is no easy answer, but here is a general approach that might work (?)

Import the shapefile (sounds like you have this working)
Edit the layer with Leaflet Draw (as you already are doing)
Save the changes as geojson object. See the draw:created and draw:edited callbacks
Try this Mapbox library to export to shape and trigger download:

shpwrite.download(geojson, options);

QGIS Shapefiles – Deleting Shapefiles with All Related Files

There is a built-in function for this in the QGIS API.

Select your layer in the Layers panel, then open the Python console and run the following:

from qgis.core import QgsVectorFileWriter

layer = iface.activeLayer() # If no layer selected, it will be empty and make the end of the script failed
shp_path = layer.dataProvider().dataSourceUri().split('|')[0]
print (QgsVectorFileWriter.deleteShapeFile(shp_path)) # Should return True if really deleted

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[GIS] How to export shapefile using Leaflet

QGIS Shapefiles – Deleting Shapefiles with All Related Files

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