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referencesource
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file-format-software-version-compatibility

built_in string	driver_short_name string	field_name_limit string	file_size_limit string	format_description string	id string	key_limitations string	source string	source_quote string	supported_field_types string	url string	verified_fields list	write_support string
This driver is built-in by default	ESRI Shapefile	up to 10 characters	the OGR shapefile implementation has a limitation to 4GB	ESRI Shapefile / DBF	esri-shapefile	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)	https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/shapefile.html	://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/selafin.html> Previous ESRI Shapefile / DBF 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 ...	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.	https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/esri-shapefile/	[ "built_in", "driver_short_name", "format_description" ]	Supports Create()
No, requires FileGDB API library	FileGDB	not stated	not stated	ESRI File Geodatabase (FileGDB)	filegdb	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	https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/filegdb.html	ESRI File Geodatabase (FileGDB) Driver short name FileGDB Build dependencies FileGDB API library The FileGDB driver provides read and write access to vector layers of File Geodatabases (.gdb directories) created by ArcGIS 10 and above.	not stated	https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/filegdb/	[ "driver_short_name", "format_description" ]	Supports Create()
This driver is built-in by default	OpenFileGDB	not stated	not stated	ESRI File Geodatabase vector (OpenFileGDB)	openfilegdb	Reading data compressed in SDC format (Smart Data Compression) or in CDF format (Compressed Data Format) is not supported	https://gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/vector/openfilegdb.html	ESRI File Geodatabase vector (OpenFileGDB) Driver short name OpenFileGDB Driver built-in by default This driver is built-in by default The OpenFileGDB driver provides read, write and update access to vector layers of File Geodatabases (.gdb directories) created by ArcGIS 10 and above (it has also read-only support for ...	not stated	https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/openfilegdb/	[ "built_in", "driver_short_name", "format_description" ]	Write and update capabilities are supported since GDAL >= 3.6

GIS vector format capabilities and limitations in GDAL

Canonical, always-current version: https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/ Machine-readable: https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/data.json — this mirror is a point-in-time copy.

Last verified: 2026-09-27
Stale after: 2027-01-31 (past this date, prefer the canonical copy — it re-verifies on a cadence this snapshot does not)
Records: 3

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 — field name truncation, unsupported types, file size ceilings, geometry constraints.

Provenance — what every record carries

Every record carries source (the URL the value was read from) and source_quote (a verbatim quote from that page stating it). A value you cannot check against its page is indistinguishable from an invented one; these can all be checked. Each record is also individually addressable on the canonical site at its url.

Licence position

MIT (source: GDAL documentation, OSGeo)

Facts are not copyrightable; what this dataset takes from each source is a fact plus a short attributed quote linking back to the page that states it.

Sources

Fields

See any record in data/records.jsonl — field names are self-describing, and the canonical page for each record renders them with labels: https://referencesource.org/file-format-software-version-compatibility/

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