Words (by Reservation Only)

Anonymous User · ‎05-26-2010

Are there reserved words for File Geodatabases?

Here at Esri Support Services, we often field questions related to reserved words within databases. While these are usually determined by third-party sources, such as the host RDBMS on which a database resides, Esri's File Geodatabase is the exception, is proprietary, and contains its own reserved words. The following are the reserved words: ADD, ALTER, AND, AS, ASC, BETWEEN, BY, COLUMN, CREATE, DATE, DELETE, DESC, DROP, EXISTS, FOR, FROM, IN, INSERT, INTO, IS, LIKE, NOT, NULL, OR, ORDER, SELECT, SET, TABLE, UPDATE, VALUES and WHERE.

With the above list of reserved words in mind, please remember that all geodatabases are compatible and that importing or exporting data into another ArcSDE or Personal Geodatabase enforces reserved words found within each disparate RDBMS. It is worthwhile to be aware of these limitations when developing a data model.

Does ArcSDE have reserved words?

We are often asked whether or not there are ArcSDE reserved words that you should be aware of when creating a data model or feature class.

While all geodatabase field names must be SQL compliant and only allow an underscore (_) as a special character (No other special characters are permitted), it is important to note that ArcSDE does not have reserved words. These are determined by the host RDBMS on which ArcSDE resides. This also holds true for Personal Geodatabases, as they are built off of Microsoft Access.

Although not reserved words, the following is a list of words that are fully qualified within an ArcSDE geodatabase: FID, AREA, LEN, POINTS, NUMOFPTS, ENTITY, EMINX, EMINY, EMAXX, EMAXY, EMINZ, EMAXZ, MIN_MEASURE, MAX_MEASURE.

For a complete list of reserved words within each of the supported RDBMS’, please follow the links below:

Please post any questions or comments that you may have in the 'Comments' section below. NOTE: You must be logged into your Esri Global Account to post comments.

- Jon D., Geodata Support Analyst, Esri Support Services