The Shape reader produces FME features for all feature data held in shapefiles residing in a given directory.
The Shape reader first scans the directory given for the shapefiles that have been defined in the workspace (or mapping file). For each shapefile it finds, it checks to see if that file is requested by looking at the list of IDs specified in the workspace. If a match is made or no IDs were specified in the workspace, the shapefile is opened to be read.
The Shape reader extracts features one at a time from the file and passes them on to the rest of the FME for further processing. When the file is exhausted, the Shape reader starts on the next file in the directory.