This format can...
read and write waypoints
read and write tracks
read and write routes
This format has the following options: name, url .
This format reads and writes ESRI shapefiles. When reading a shapefile Point, PointZ and PointM shapes are mapped to waypoints. PolyLine(Arc), PolyLineZ(ArcZ) and PolyLineM(ArcM) shapes are mapped to routes. When writing a shapefile waypoints are mapped to Point shapes and routes or tracks are mapped to PolyLine(Arc) shapes depending on the the objective given by the -w, -r or -t option. Because shapefiles can only contain one type of shape these options are mutually exclusive.
The minimum shape file set for read consists of a .shp, .shx and .dbf file. A .cpg file will be checked if it exists. When passing a file name for a set of shape files the name of any of the files from this set can be used. The files must be unzipped.
On read any projection format in a .prj file will be ignored. This may or may not result in a misinterpretation of the data. GPSBabel expects the coordinate system used in the shapefile to be a Geographic Coordinate System with units in decimal degrees measuring degrees of longitude (x-coordinates) and degrees of latitude (y-coordinates), e.g. WGS 84. To transform from the spatial reference system described in the .prj file to the Geographic Coordinate System WGS 84 you can use the GDAL utility ogr2ogr, e.g. "ogr2ogr -t_srs EPSG:4326 output.shp input.shp".
On read an attempt will be made to check the code page used by the .dbf file and report if it is not UTF-8. However, character data within the .dbf file is always processed as if it was encoded with UTF-8. If the .dbf file was using a different code page this may or may not cause a problem.
Source for name field in .dbf.
This option specifies where to get name information for each shape. Without this option the name data will be fetched from a field named "NAME" if it exists in the .dbf file.
It the value is a set of digits then the name is fetched from a record with that field index in the .dbf file. Otherwise, if the value does not start with a '+' character, the name is fetched from record with that field name in the .dbf file. When the value starts with a '+' character then multiple records from the .dbf file can be combined to create the name. The plus character should be followed by a set of digit(s) representing a field index, or a field name as above. This may be followed by an additional '+' character, and another set of digits or a field name. As many records as desired can be selected in this fashion. For example shape,name=+0+4 would create a name by combining records with field indices 0 and 4. shape,name=+osm_id+name would create a name by combining records with field names 'osm_id' and 'name'.
Source for URL field in .dbf.
This option specifies where to get URL information for each shape. Without this option the URL data will be fetched from a field named "URL" if it exists in the .dbf file.
It the value is a set of digits then the URL is fetched from a record with that field index in the .dbf file. Otherwise, the URL is fetched from record with that field name in the .dbf file.