dbfpy

Both OGR and PyShp read and write the dbf files because they are part of the shapefile specification. However, both libraries have a very basic dbf support. Occasionally you will need to do some heavier duty dbf work. The dbfpy module is a pure Python module dedicated to working with dbf files. It is hosted on sourceforge.net but has an entry on PyPI. However, the PyPI entry is not correctly configured and you have to force easy_install to find the download by specifying the download directory:

easy_install -f http://sourceforge.net/projects/dbfpy/files/dbfpy/2.2.5/dbfpy

If you are using pip to install packages, use the following command:

pip install http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/dbfpy/dbfpy/2.2.5/dbfpy-2.2.5.tar.gz

The following shapefile has over 600 dbf records representing US Census Bureau tracts which make it a good sample for trying out dbfpy: https://geospatialpython.googlecode.com/files/GIS_CensusTract.zip

Let's open up the dbf file of this shapefile and look at the...