topic Re: Character type column names in Geodatabase Questions

Character type column names

RobertKirkwood — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:35:53 GMT

Is it bad to name a column in an SDE table with a pound sign? For example: #_Conduit or #_Feature

Re: Character type column names

Tarini_MehraMehra — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:52:17 GMT

Hi Robert,
Generally it is not a recommended practice to use special characters in a field/column name. The names should give an indication of what data is contained in that particular column.

Below would be a few web links for your reference:

FAQ: What characters should not be used in ArcGIS for field names and table names?
http://support.esri.com/technical-article/000005588

Defining fields in tables
http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.3/manage-data/tables/design-defining-fields-in-tables.htm#GUID-80F2C74F-E7D4-47B6-8EBD-0D2E60DEB642

Re: Character type column names

RobertKirkwood — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:55:45 GMT

Thanks. The geodatabase already has feature classes in it set up with column names that start with #. This was done a while back before i got here. Now i will be designing a web application using the tables with column names that start with the #. I was worried it might make queries act strange?

Re: Character type column names

JayantaPoddar — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 19:56:35 GMT

Check Character type limits in object names - Enterprise geodatabase size and name limits—ArcGIS Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Re: Character type column names

RobertKirkwood — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 20:02:16 GMT

Thanks, I did read that and it makes no mention of the #. So maybe it will be ok!

Re: Character type column names

MichaelVolz — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 20:17:08 GMT

You might want to clean up your data now (take the pain) and remove the # signs before you get deep into building/configuring your web applications where it might become much more difficult (painful) to clean your data with dependent apps hanging off non Best Practice data sets.

Re: Character type column names

RobertKirkwood — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 20:19:05 GMT

Ok! Thank you!

Re: Character type column names

MichaelVolz — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 20:21:52 GMT

Are you planning to use ESRI OOTB solutions based on their data models?

Re: Character type column names

RobertKirkwood — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 20:24:43 GMT

I am going to be making the web application from scratch