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c++shapefilegdal

Which C++ library for ESRI shapefiles to choose?

Does anyone have an experience in processing (reading) ESRI shapefiles from C++?

I have found at least 2 open source libraries: ShapeLib C library and OGR. Which one is better? Does anybody used one of them? How about the experience?

Solution

  • I've found them both to be ok, but I'd choose the ShapeLib library as ogr is a bit heavy/weird for its purpose.

    The shapefile format is very simple; if you only have to access a specific/simple set of shapefiles you could consider reinventing the wheel and write the code to access them yourself. I've done this in an embedded app and it didn't take much more time then using these libs.