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ESRI Shapefile Technical Description
J-7855
ESRI White Paper 3
Figure 1
Organization of the Main File
File Header
Record Header Record Contents
Record Header Record Contents
Record Header Record Contents
Record Header Record Contents
. . .
. . .
Record Header Record Contents
Byte Order
All the contents in a shapefile can be divided into two categories:
Data related
• Main file record contents
• Main file header’s data description fields (Shape Type, Bounding Box, etc.)
File management related
• File and record lengths
• Record offsets, and so on
The integers and double-precision integers that make up the data description fields in the
file header (identified below) and record contents in the main file are in little endian (PC
or Intel
®
) byte order. The integers and double-precision floating point numbers that make
up the rest of the file and file management are in big endian (Sun
®
or Motorola
®
) byte
order.
The Main File Header The main file header is 100 bytes long. Table 1 shows the fields in the file header with
their byte position, value, type, and byte order. In the table, position is with respect to the
start of the file.