ArcGIS Pro should be smart enough to maintain existing metadata if a field is renamed

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05-06-2020 08:17 AM
Status: Open
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DuncanHornby
MVP Notable Contributor

So I am in a really big fan of documenting information about a field in its metadata. I show an example below, here I comment on a field called CrossingType_2011:

 

Not enough people do this but that's another issue! 

 

Anyway as I work on various projects that run for many years I often have to go back and augment my datasets. Rather than creating copies of the data I sometimes add new fields and sometimes this requires me to rename a field. If using the example above I may have renamed CrossingType_2011 to say CrossingType.

 

The problem is that ArcGIS Pro blitzes any existing metadata at the field level if you rename a field. So for example I have all this information documented for field CrossingType_2011 but when I rename it to CrossingType is loses it all. If you have a field with a domain and you went to the great effort of adding all that under enumeration you loose that too.

 

ArcGIS Pro should be smart enough to maintain existing metadata if a field is renamed and may be insert into the field description text saying "renamed from XXX".