Mapinfo + Java : A way to decrypt coordinates in a DAT file?

Question

I have .DAT files representing lines in the map. The .dat file I can easily visualize in MapInfo. The x,y,z positions of the lines are stored in columns in that .DAT file with the Lambert 2 coordinates system. These coordinates seem to be encrypted by MapInfo. Is there a way to decrypt them using Java. What I already used, is to convert these .dat file to shp file using MapInfo tool and then loading them in Geoserver which was able to display the geographic data.

Answer 1

I found this:

The MapInfo dataset format, which comprises a group of related files, is developed and regulated as a proprietary GIS dataset format used in MapInfo products. MapInfo's component .DAT file is a dBASE Table File in dBase (III, IV, or V) format which is well documented. As of August 2011, the MapInfo products are maintained and distributed by Pitney Bowes Business Insight.

source: http://www.digitalpreservation.gov/formats/fdd/fdd000324.shtml

You can probably read that file using this library: http://dans-dbf-lib.sourceforge.net/

Alternatively, if you want to read your converted shape files with java, GeoTools is a pretty good library for doing it: http://www.geotools.org/ The tutorial contains examples of reading shape files.