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I've seen other answers detailing how one can clip a .shp file with ogr2ogr but this just returns a clipped set of geographic features. I also want to clip the .shx and the .dbf in the same manner. Is this possible?

For instance, if I have all-of-rhode-island{.shp, .shx, .dbf} in my current directory, I could try:

ogr2ogr -clipsrc 41.31 -71.87 41.50 -71.53 smaller-ri all-of-rhode-island

But ogr2ogr can't figure out which driver to use with that input file.

My actual goal is to take a TIGER Census file and reduce its size drastically. I only need a few features, but I do need "matching" .dbf and .shx files.

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Matt
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    Are you looking for a specific solution? You mention OGR so I guess you are not using ArcGIS/MapInfo as what you are asking would be trivial in those GIS systems. If you are looking for an open source solution then consider QGIS? – Hornbydd Dec 20 '14 at 00:31
  • I would love something for Linux or the command line or (best of all) python. I will try QGIS Desktop, thanks. I had been stumped looking at QGIS /Browser/, not realizing there was a difference. – Matt Dec 20 '14 at 00:33
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    The shapefile format spans the three files; it is required that the .shx and .dbf have the same number of records as the .shp (or it's not a valid shapefile). – Vince Dec 20 '14 at 01:41

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ogr2ogr is the tool to use for this, I've realized. It will clip .shp, .shx, .dbf and other files if you run it correctly (which I was not doing).

I was using latitude as x and longitude as y, but that is incorrect. This was what I eventually used:

ogr2ogr -clipsrc -71.87 41.31 -71.53 41.50 smaller-ri.shp rhode-island.shp

Matt
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  • Note: ogr2ogr does have shapefile as a default output format but some other GDAL tools have other defaults, like GML. Your command is correct but myself I give always output format explicitly even for shapefiles by addin -f "ESRI Shapefile". It makes me feel that I am the one who controlls the situation. – user30184 Dec 20 '14 at 10:18