Shortening ArcSDE Names

Question

I have an SDE Geodatabase created on our Arc Enterprise Server. Is there any way to shorten these names that are created when importing or creating a feature layer within the geodatabase? For example, the first layer is "Data_Library.DBO.NewJersey_Counties" is there any way to shorten the name to just NewJersey_Counties?

BirajaNayak · Answer

Hi David,

What you see in Arccatalog or in screen capture you provided, it is fully qualified name. It shows, the feature class "NewJersey_Counties" owned by "DBO" and created in geodataabse named  "Data_Library". This is by design.

Here is another old thread which may be useful:

https://community.esri.com/thread/65738

Question is why you want to strip the database name and owner name from feature class.  What is the holistic requirement or what you want to achieve.

Thanks,

Biraja

Screenshot (91).png

ArcGeeks AGOL EC.png

RandyKreuziger · Answer

Dana,

The metadata title is not used when adding a feature class to ArcMap the SDE alias is and it defaults to the full "Data_Library.DBO.NewJersey_Counties" name if not edited by the feature class owner.  What I do is run a python script against my SDE instance to rename the alias by stripping the "database.dbo." string from the feature class name so if not set it's at least cleaner.  "Data_Library.DBO.NewJersey_Counties" becomes "NewJersey_Counties" but "New Jersey Counties" county is left as is.

David, if I can find the code I'll post it here.

DanaNolan · Answer

You can make up any title using the metadata editor. The long names will still show in ArcCatalog browsing (in ArcGIS at least), but there are situations (not sure which) when the alias title will come in instead of the long name. The alias title will remain with the metadata on export. The surest way is to add data from an lyr file in which you have given the layer a better name.