DbfSharp

A modern, high-performance command-line tool for working with Shapefiles and DBF database files.

Convert Shapefiles to GeoJSON, extract data from DBF files to CSV/JSON, perform spatial queries, and analyze geospatial data—all from your terminal.

Quick Start

# Install
brew install dbfsharp

# Export Shapefile to GeoJSON
dbfsharp read cities.shp --format geojson --output cities.geojson

# Spatial query - filter by bounding box
dbfsharp read parcels.shp --bounding-box "-118.5,34.0,-118.0,34.5" --format geojson

# Convert DBF to CSV
dbfsharp read data.dbf --format csv --output data.csv

# Analyze file structure
dbfsharp info cities.shp

Key Features

• Complete Shapefile support - Read geometry, attributes, and perform spatial operations
• Spatial queries - Bounding box filtering, nearest neighbor searches, R-tree spatial indexing
• GeoJSON export - Convert Shapefiles to modern GeoJSON format
• Multiple output formats - Export to GeoJSON, CSV, TSV, JSON, or console tables
• Universal DBF compatibility - Supports all DBF versions (dBASE III/IV, Visual FoxPro, Clipper)
• High performance - Optimized streaming for large files (millions of records)
• Cross-platform CLI - Works on Windows, Linux, and macOS
• Pipeline friendly - Works with stdin/stdout for Unix-style data processing
• Legacy encoding support - Properly handles various character encodings

Installation

Homebrew (Recommended)

brew install dbfsharp

.NET Tool (Alternative)

If you have .NET 9.0 SDK or later installed:

dotnet tool install -g DbfSharp

Common Use Cases

Working with Shapefiles

# Export complete Shapefile to GeoJSON
dbfsharp read buildings.shp --format geojson --output buildings.geojson

# Filter by geographic bounding box (minX,minY,maxX,maxY)
dbfsharp read parcels.shp --bounding-box "-122.5,37.7,-122.3,37.8" --format geojson

# Find nearest features to a point
dbfsharp read poi.shp --nearest-point "-118.25,34.05" --nearest-count 10 --format geojson

# Extract attributes only (ignore geometry)
dbfsharp read census.shp --fields "GEOID,POP2020,NAME" --format csv

Converting DBF Data

# Convert to CSV for Excel/Google Sheets
dbfsharp read data.dbf --format csv --output data.csv

# Convert to JSON for modern applications
dbfsharp read products.dbf --format json --output products.json

# Extract specific fields only
dbfsharp read employees.dbf --fields "ID,NAME,EMAIL,SALARY" --format csv

Data Analysis & Exploration

# Inspect file structure and metadata
dbfsharp info data.dbf

# View detailed statistics and sample records
dbfsharp info data.dbf --verbose

# Preview first 20 records
dbfsharp read data.dbf --limit 20

# Sample middle section of data
dbfsharp read data.dbf --skip 1000 --limit 50

Pipeline Integration

# Filter with grep
dbfsharp read employees.dbf --format csv | grep "Engineer"

# Process with jq
dbfsharp read sales.dbf --format json | jq '.[] | select(.AMOUNT > 1000)'

# Chain with other commands
dbfsharp read data.dbf --format csv --fields "ID,NAME" | sort | uniq | head -10

# Process from stdin
cat remote_file.dbf | dbfsharp read --format json

Commands

read - Convert and Export Data

Extract data from DBF files or Shapefiles and export to various formats.

Syntax:

dbfsharp read [FILE] [OPTIONS]

Key Options:

• --format, -f - Output format: table (default), csv, tsv, json, geojson
• --output, -o - Output file path (stdout if not specified)
• --fields - Comma-separated list of fields to include
• --limit, -l - Maximum number of records
• --skip, -s - Skip first N records
• --bounding-box - Spatial filter: "minX,minY,maxX,maxY" (Shapefiles only)
• --nearest-point - Find nearest features: "x,y" (Shapefiles only)
• --build-spatial-index - Build R-tree index for faster queries

📚 Full command documentation →

info - Analyze File Structure

Display comprehensive metadata, field definitions, and statistics about DBF files or Shapefiles.

Syntax:

dbfsharp info [FILE] [OPTIONS]

Key Options:

• --verbose, -v - Show additional details including sample data
• --fields - Show field definitions (default: true)
• --stats - Show record statistics (default: true)
• --memo - Show memo file information (default: true)

📚 Full command documentation →

Supported Formats

Input Formats

DBF Files:

• dBASE II, III, III+, IV, 5
• FoxBase, FoxPro 2.x
• Visual FoxPro 3-9
• Clipper
• All standard field types (Character, Date, Numeric, Logical, Memo, etc.)

Shapefiles:

• Geometry types: Point, MultiPoint, LineString, Polygon, MultiPatch
• Spatial components: .shp (geometry), .shx (index), .dbf (attributes)
• Projection files: .prj (coordinate system)
• Character encoding: .cpg files

Memo Files:

• .dbt (dBASE III, IV)
• .fpt (Visual FoxPro)

Output Formats

• CSV - Comma-separated values
• TSV - Tab-separated values
• JSON - Array of objects with field names as keys
• GeoJSON - For Shapefiles with geometry (RFC 7946 compliant)
• Table - Human-readable console table

Performance

DbfSharp is optimized for high throughput and low memory usage:

• Streaming processing - Handle files larger than available RAM
• Memory-mapped files - Efficient access for large datasets
• R-tree spatial indexing - Fast spatial queries on Shapefiles
• Native AOT compilation - Minimal startup overhead

Benchmark (1 million records, 10 fields):

• Sequential read: ~1.3M records/sec
• Memory-optimized: ~3.3M records/sec with 24MB RAM
• CSV export: ~800K records/sec
• JSON export: ~600K records/sec

💡 Tip: Use --build-spatial-index for large Shapefiles with spatial queries to significantly improve performance.

---

.NET Library

DbfSharp also provides a high-performance .NET library for programmatic access in your applications:

using DbfSharp.Core;

// Read Shapefile with spatial queries
using var shpReader = ShapefileReader.Open("cities.shp");
shpReader.BuildSpatialIndex();

var bbox = new BoundingBox(-100, 40, -90, 50);
var features = shpReader.QuerySpatialIndex(bbox);

foreach (var feature in features)
{
    var geometry = feature.Geometry;
    var population = feature.GetAttribute<int>("POPULATION");
    Console.WriteLine($"{geometry}: {population:N0} people");
}

// Read DBF file
using var reader = DbfReader.Create("data.dbf");
foreach (var record in reader.Records)
{
    var name = record.GetString("NAME");
    var date = record.GetDateTime("DATE");
    Console.WriteLine($"{name}: {date}");
}

📚 Complete .NET library documentation →

Install via NuGet:

dotnet add package DbfSharp.Core

---

Examples & Resources

• CLI Documentation: DbfSharp.ConsoleAot/README.md
• Library Documentation: DbfSharp.Core/README.md
• Issue Tracker: GitHub Issues
• Discussions: GitHub Discussions

---

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request. For major changes, please open an issue first to discuss what you would like to change.

---

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License - see the LICENSE file for details.