A. DBF- Is the designation for DBase format. The advantages of using DBase is that it can be opened by virtually any spreadsheet or statistical program and automatically recognizes separates columns and recognizes column labels. The disadvantages of using DBase are that it is less efficient than ASCII format (see below) and the number of columns is limited. . DBase files can be located by clicking on the link DBF under a given geographic unit.
B. DAT- Is the designation for fixed field ASCII format. The advantages of using ASCII files it can be opened by a wide variety of programs, that it is highly efficient and that the number of variables is unlimited. The disadvantage of ASCII files is that column width and names must be designated manually. ASCII files can be located by clicking on DAT under a given geographic unit.
C. MAPINFO FILES