Large text fields

Question

Some dbms support memo fields wherein you can store text beyond the 255 character limit imposed by a standard character field. However ESRI seems to reject all my attempts to use fields of this nature. IS there a field type supported by ESRI which allows more than 255 characters?
Thanks

AaronBaumgarden · Answer

Robert,

I have a question for you related to exceeding a predefined text field length.  Is it supposed to be possible for a field to contain more characters than a set limit?  I have a FC in a FGDB that is set to 300 characters but some of the records actually contain more than the 300 character limit.  How is that possible?  When I try to load data from that FC into another one with an identical schema it will not allow those records to transfer.

Thanks,

Aaron Baumgarden

DonFreeman · Answer

Hi Don -

If you're working with a file geodatabase, the text field width can be 2,147,483,647 characters - http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/File_geodatabase_size_and_name_limits/003n0000007q000000/

If you're working with SDE geodatabases, it depends upon the type of RDBMS you're using - http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Data_types_in_the_DBMS/003n0000001n000000/

Good luck!

Robert LeClair
Esri-Denver

That's wonderful. Thanks for the info.

Robert LeClair · Answer

Hi Don -

If you're working with a file geodatabase, the text field width can be 2,147,483,647 characters - http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/File_geodatabase_size_and_name_limits/003n0000007q000000/

If you're working with SDE geodatabases, it depends upon the type of RDBMS you're using - http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Data_types_in_the_DBMS/003n0000001n000000/

Good luck!

Robert LeClair
Esri-Denver