Editing Query Layer

NoahHuntington

I'm curious if a query layer can be edited. I have created a query layer which joins a table to a FC (table is registered with gdb). The connection used has edit rights to both tables. When I attempt to edit this layer in ArcMap it does not work. I can start the edit session but can't do anything like delete a feature, add a feature or edit attributes.

Thanks
Noah

RichardFairhurst

I'm curious if a query layer can be edited. I have created a query layer which joins a table to a FC (table is registered with gdb). The connection used has edit rights to both tables. When I attempt to edit this layer in ArcMap it does not work. I can start the edit session but can't do anything like delete a feature, add a feature or edit attributes.

Thanks
Noah

A Query layer is read-only.  It only exists in memory and not as a feature class with edit rights.  To edit it you would have to export it to a feature class.  However, the exported join would not be connected to the source feature class or table, so your edits of the exported join would not transfer back to the sources.

Using a relate to the original sources from the query layer and editing at the source is about the only way to do editing to your sources in combination with a query layer.  However, the query layer will not automatically refresh to reflect the edits (performance is an issue for large joins, so the memory does not refresh automatically and usually you have to create the Query Table again to refresh it).  All in all query layers are quite limited and mainly are useful for visualizing one-to-many and many-to-many relationships that have already been created at the source, but not much good for correcting errors or editing the sources.