{
  "name": "GIS vector format capabilities and limitations in GDAL",
  "description": "Key capabilities, version requirements and format limitations for GIS vector drivers in GDAL, the authoritative open-source geospatial library. The question an assistant gets wrong is what is lost when converting between formats \u2014 field name truncation, unsupported types, file size ceilings, geometry constraints.",
  "url": "https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/",
  "licence": "MIT (source: GDAL documentation, OSGeo)",
  "last_verified": "2026-08-04",
  "stale_after": "2027-01-31",
  "sources": [
    "https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/shapefile.html",
    "https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/openfilegdb.html",
    "https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/filegdb.html"
  ],
  "records": [
    {
      "driver_short_name": "ESRI Shapefile",
      "format_description": "ESRI Shapefile / DBF",
      "built_in": "This driver is built-in by default",
      "write_support": "Supports Create()",
      "field_name_limit": "up to 10 characters",
      "supported_field_types": "Only Integer, Integer64, Real, String and Date (not DateTime, just year/month/day) field types are supported. The various list, and binary field types cannot be created.",
      "file_size_limit": "the OGR shapefile implementation has a limitation to 4GB",
      "key_limitations": "Attribute names can only be up to 10 characters long; ESRI shapefiles can only store one kind of geometry per layer (shapefile); the driver knows to auto-extend string and integer fields (up to the 255 bytes limit imposed by the DBF format)",
      "id": "esri-shapefile",
      "url": "https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/esri-shapefile/",
      "source": "https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/shapefile.html",
      "source_quote": "://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/selafin.html> Previous ESRI Shapefile / DBF \uf0c1 Driver short name ESRI Shapefile Driver built-in by default This driver is built-in by default All varieties of ESRI Shapefiles should be available for reading, creation and editing. The driver can also handle standalone DBF files without associated .shp files. Normally the OG"
    },
    {
      "driver_short_name": "FileGDB",
      "format_description": "ESRI File Geodatabase (FileGDB)",
      "built_in": "No, requires FileGDB API library",
      "write_support": "Supports Create()",
      "field_name_limit": "not stated",
      "supported_field_types": "not stated",
      "file_size_limit": "not stated",
      "key_limitations": "The driver does not support 64-bit integers; Reading data compressed in SDC format (Smart Data Compression) is not support by the driver, because it is not supported by the ESRI SDK",
      "id": "filegdb",
      "url": "https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/filegdb/",
      "source": "https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/filegdb.html",
      "source_quote": "ESRI File Geodatabase (FileGDB) &mdash; GDAL documentation <https://gdal.org/en/stable/index.html> <https://gdal.org/en/stable/download.html> Download <https://gdal.org/en/stable/programs/index.html> Programs <https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/raster/index.html> Raster drivers <https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/i"
    },
    {
      "driver_short_name": "OpenFileGDB",
      "format_description": "ESRI File Geodatabase vector (OpenFileGDB)",
      "built_in": "This driver is built-in by default",
      "write_support": "Write and update capabilities are supported since GDAL >= 3.6",
      "field_name_limit": "not stated",
      "supported_field_types": "not stated",
      "file_size_limit": "not stated",
      "key_limitations": "Reading data compressed in SDC format (Smart Data Compression) or in CDF format (Compressed Data Format) is not supported",
      "id": "openfilegdb",
      "url": "https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/openfilegdb/",
      "source": "https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/openfilegdb.html",
      "source_quote": "github.com/OSGeo/gdal/edit/master/doc/source/drivers/vector/openfilegdb.rst> Edit on GitHub <https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/osm.html> Next <https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/ods.html> Previous ESRI File Geodatabase vector (OpenFileGDB) \uf0c1 Driver short name OpenFileGDB Driver built-in by default This driver is built-in by default The OpenFil"
    }
  ]
}