ABSTRACT
The chapter on basic data operations reviews elementary data wrangling functionality as implemented in the GeoDa software. The focus is on data input and output for both non-spatial and spatial data formats, and on the manipulation of tabular information through the Table functionality in the software.
Different types of GIS files are introduced, including ESRI shapefiles, GeoJSON and GML format files, and the use of GeoDa as a convenient format converter is illustrated. The creation of point layers from tabular data and grid layouts is covered, and an initial introduction into the concept of projections and the coordinate reference system (CRS) is provided.
Several operations on tabular information are reviewed, illustrating the functionality of the Calculator and Selection Tool. The latter supports a range of spatial and non-spatial queries as well as the creation of special indicator variables for the selected observations.
