Driver for connecting to FGDBs using an SQL client (such as JDBC)

Bud — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 18:22:43 GMT

Could Esri consider providing a driver for connecting to FGDBs in an SQL client?

For example, I can connect to other data sources like MS Access MDBs/ACCDBs in SQuirreL SQL using a JDBC driver: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/74683263/connect-sql-client-to-an-ms-access-database-instead-of-using-ms-access-sql-text . There are other options too, such as using ODBC in RazorSQL or Toad Data Point.

Likewise, it would be great if we could do something similar for FGDBs, since we don't have any full-blown SQL querying options for FGDBs inside of ArcGIS. Other than database views, which have limitations and known bugs (such as the division symbol ‘/‘ not being supported). Query layers aren't supported for FGDBs either.

I'm aware that FGDBs are proprietary and are usually only accessed from within ArcGIS. But that doesn't mean it's impossible for Esri to come up with a way to query FGDBs using a JDBC driver, or something like that, using the FGDB API…so that we could do more in-depth SQL querying in a proper SQL client.

Re: Driver for connecting to FGDBs using an SQL client (such as JDBC)

Bud — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 08:59:29 GMT

For what it’s worth, QGIS/GDAL/Python users seem to be ahead of the curve in the open source world: https://github.com/AlexArcPy/GDBee. They’re querying FGDBs using full-blown SQL queries in a SQL client of sorts, and even doing spatial FGDB SQL queries too. Cool!

It would be great if we could do the same thing using an Esri-built driver, in a fully-featured SQL client.

idea Driver for connecting to FGDBs using an SQL client (such as JDBC) in Data Management Ideas

Driver for connecting to FGDBs using an SQL client (such as JDBC)

Re: Driver for connecting to FGDBs using an SQL client (such as JDBC)