Lab 3: Data Processing 1
2/9/22:
The given steps were easy to follow. I got ahead of the demonstration but was listening as well. I didn’t know how to make the FIPS codes text, and the given steps didn’t make sense for me. The term “single quote” confused me, however, by following the demonstration I managed to convert the FIPS numbers to text. I have compiled South Carolina’s census data by county from 1900 to 2020 in one table. I managed to find a table for South Carolina’s 2020 data during my Lab 1 data search, so I used that instead of the population estimate for 2020. Excel has lots of cool features! I have never used Open Office before so that was interesting as well. Formatting data is very tedious though and there are many important steps to follow otherwise GIS will be unhappy.
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Here is my data chart:
Definitions of file extensions:
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.txt: “txt” stands for text. It is a text file with lines of electronic text. They are commonly used to store information.
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.csv: “csv” stands for comma separated values. It is a text file that contains a list of data which is separated by commas.
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.xls: “xls” is a spreadsheet using Excel Binary File Format. It stores and displays data in a table format and can contain one or more worksheets. “xls” can use functions, charts, and various style and formatting options. “.xls” is typically a Microsoft Excel file.
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FIPS codes comments:
FIPS stands for Federal Information Processing Standards. FIPS codes are numbers which uniquely identify geographic areas. In the United States of America, county-level FIPS codes have five digits, the first two of which are the state’s. GIS knows what code links to what geographic area. Instead of a name linking to a geographic area a number links. These numbers help store, process, exchange, and retrieve geographic data.
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DBF file comments
A DBF file is a database file used by dBASE, a database management system application. DBFs have a relatively straightforward file structure. In the early 1980s, DBFs were a widely accepted and popular storage format for structured data in commercial applications. ESRI (the company that makes ArcGIS) uses three main data formats for storing geographic information: coverages, shapefiles, and geodatabases. Shapefiles use DBF files to attribute data and object IDs.
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On a side note: the GIS lab got new computers and they are very… rainbow-y and flashy.
