Being able to create digital maps from data is a useful skill, although in most of the time, we are using spatial data exchange formats to save our raw data. We are using these formats to save our edits, export a subset of our database to use it locally, or share our data with others. There are a vast amount of different spatial formats, and all of them has their peculiarities, their most appropriate use cases. We should be able to choose the most appropriate format for our case.
There are a wide variety of vector formats with quite distinct purposes. Some of the vector formats are created to fully support the specialities of the host software while others are more general ones. A unique property of vector GIS formats is that there isn't an all-purpose, all-in-one format. There are two main types of formats--binary and ASCII (text-based). Binary formats are more concise; however, they require parsing algorithms with binary magic directly developed...