Converting a shapefile with multiple features into independent GeoJSON files

README.md

Converting a shapefile with multiple features into independent GeoJSON files

Usage

bash /path/to/shp2geojson.sh /path/to/input.shp unique_column /path/to/output-dir

Parameters

• /path/to/shp2geojson.sh - the relative or full path to the shp2geojson.sh script
• /path/to/input.shp - the relative or full path to the shapefile that contains multiple features
• unique_column - the column in the attribute table of the shapefile which contains unique entries that can serve as identifiers such as IDs. If your shapefile does not contain a column with unique IDs, I would suggest not to use this literature and use the alternative guide instead.
• /path/to/output-dir - the relative or full path to the directory/folder where you want the GeoJSON files to be stored. You don't need to create this folder beforehand. The script can create the folder if it currently does not exist.

Example

bash shp2geojson.sh /Users/john/Downloads/input.shp id /Users/john/Desktop/geojsons

Full tutorial

1. Download the shp2geojson.sh script 😋

2. Open the Terminal app 🤓

3. Issue the command 😎

   bash /Users/john/Downloads/shp2geojson.sh /Users/john/Downloads/input.shp id /Users/john/Desktop/geojsons

   Replace the certain parts of the command depending on your case. See the Parameters section for reference.

Use cases

• Using GeoJSON with Leaflet, Leaflet Tutorials, leafletjs.com
• Data Layer, Maps JavaScript API, developers.google.com

shp2geojson.sh

#!/bin/bash
clear;

layername=$(ogrinfo -nogeomtype "$1" | grep "1:" | awk '{print $2}')
count=$(ogrinfo -so -ro "$1" "$layername" | grep "Feature Count:" | awk '{print $3}')

if [ -d $3 ]; then
	echo "The directory $3 is now ready."
else
	mkdir -p "$3"
	echo "The directory $3 is has just been created and now ready."
fi

for (( i=0; i<$count; i++ )); do
   echo "Processing feature #$i..."
   filename=$(ogrinfo -fid $i -ro -noextent -nomd -geom=NO "$1" "$layername" | grep "$2 " | awk '{print $4}')
   ogr2ogr -f GeoJSON -t_srs EPSG:4326 -fid "$i" "$3/$filename.geojson" "$1"
done