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When I try to use a particular shapefile in the Thiessen Polygon Creator tool or in Loadbuilder I get an 'Index Out Of Range Exception' error that says: " Index was outside the bounds of the array." Why is this?
This message is usually due to the fact that the shapefile is a ZM, Z, or M shapefile. This indicates that the shapefile has 3 dimensions instead of the normal 2 dimesions of a regular shapefile. The 3rd dimension being height or elevation, hence the ZM, Z, or M.
This issue was resolved in a patch set for version 08.11.03.19, so downloading this version or a newer version elminates the issue.
Or you have the option of speaking to your GIS professional and have them remove the ZM, Z, or M from your shapefile
The Shapefile format (SHP) requires at least three files in the same directory, with the same name and the following extensions
File Extension
Description
.shp
Shape Format: Describe the feature geometry such as points, polylines, and polygons
.shx
Shape Index Format: A positional index of the feature geometry to allow seeking forwards and backwards quickly
.dbf
Attribute Format: Columnar attributes for each shape, in dBase III format
In addition to the three mandatory files listed above, you can include the following optional files:
.prj
Project Format; contains the coordinate system and projection information, a plain text file describing the projection using well-known text format
.sbn and .sbx
A spatial index of the features
.fbn and .fbx
A spatial index of the features for shapefiles that are read-only
.ain and .aih
An attribute index of the active fields in a table or a theme's attribute table
.ixs
A geocoding index for read-write shapefiles
.mxs
A geocoding index for read-write shapefiles (ODB format)
.atx
An attribute index for the .dbf file in the form of shapefile.columnname.atx (ArcGIS 8 and later)
.shp.xml
Metadata in XML format
.cpg
Used to specify the code page (only for .dbf) for identifying the character encoding that will be used
Make sure that the folder containing the SHP file also contains the associated SHX and DBF files with the identical file names.