# Is it possible to create indexs on the dbf files?

**URL:** <https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139>\
**Category:** MapWinGIS\
**Created:** [April 15, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139 "2019-04-15T21:02:46Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jonwinchester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/278dde/32.png) [@jonwinchester](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/u/jonwinchester)\
**Post date:** [April 15, 2019, 9:02pm UTC](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139/1 "2019-04-15T21:02:46Z")

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I am having performance issues looking up streets. Is it possible to create indexes on the dbf files?

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**Author:** ![pmeems](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mapwindow.discourse.group/pmeems/32/9_2.png) [@pmeems](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/u/pmeems)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2019, 5:15pm UTC](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139/2 "2019-04-16T17:15:25Z")

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I’m not sure. We’re using an external library for reading/writing shapefiles.  
If that library can handle it, MWGis should be able to handle it as well.

@jerryfaust, you’ve recently updated the shapefile library. Do you know if this is possible?

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**Author:** ![jerryfaust](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mapwindow.discourse.group/jerryfaust/32/378_2.png) [@jerryfaust](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/u/jerryfaust)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2019, 6:48am UTC](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139/3 "2019-04-17T06:48:33Z")

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I poked around a little, and unfortunately, I don’t see any references to dBase indexes (ndx or mdx) in [the library](http://shapelib.maptools.org/).

I know that it may not be practical, but if you have an OGR-supported database engine available (or even create a SQLite database), you could upload the shapefile there. I’ve done this in the past, and you can then get much more efficient query capabilities.

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**Author:** ![jonwinchester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/278dde/32.png) [@jonwinchester](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/u/jonwinchester)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2019, 11:52am UTC](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139/4 "2019-04-17T11:52:50Z")

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Thanks. I did add the Microsoft Jet odbc and can query the .dbf file directly, which seems to work fine and I am getting pretty good performance now both ways. It looks like I am geocoding about 10 addresses per second, which looks like it will be fast enough. Thanks for all the help.

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**Author:** ![pmeems](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/mapwindow.discourse.group/pmeems/32/9_2.png) [@pmeems](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/u/pmeems)\
**Post date:** [April 22, 2019, 4:00pm UTC](https://mapwindow.discourse.group/t/is-it-possible-to-create-indexs-on-the-dbf-files/139/5 "2019-04-22T16:00:03Z")

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