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Identify widget 3.0 field config question

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08-31-2012 08:23 AM
BrianOevermann
Frequent Contributor
I have a map service containing parcels that has an external SQL Server table containing assessor info joined to it.  Pre-10.1 I accomplished this via an ODBC connection to the table, but apparently an active bug with Server prevents registering an ODBC/OLE DB data source.  So I have connected to the table with a database connection (that I can register as a source in Server).

Everything works as expected, but the REST service publishes the fully qualified field name and alias as:

Assessor_Info."domain\user".%ParcelInfo.PropertyOwner ( type: esriFieldTypeString , alias: Assessor_Info."domain\user".%ParcelInfo.PropertyOwner , length: 255 )

FYI, I am using the uncompiled version of the widget...
When I configure the fields in the Identify widget config, the quoted domain\user portion of the alias becomes an issue.  I have attempted to "escape" the quotes using \" (no success) and &qt;.  The &qt; escape properly shows the whole alias as one quoted string value for the config but Flash Builder marks it with "The entity "qt" was referenced, but not declared."

Is there another way to escape the quotes to get the config file to read properly?  I am attaching my config file in case that helps.
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9 Replies
RobertScheitlin__GISP
MVP Emeritus
Brian,

   So when you go into the mxd for that table do you have alias for those field actually setup? Meaning have you tried to assign an alias to the field and re-publish to see if it does not look like alias: Assessor_Info."domain\user".%ParcelInfo.PropertyOwner.
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BrianOevermann
Frequent Contributor
Robert,

Thanks for the quick response!  Your suggestion is what makes this even more of a head-scratcher.

In the mxd, the alias for all of those fields is simply the field name itself.  Using the example field I posted originally, the Alias entry is simply PropertyOwner and in the field details the Name is listed as Assessor_Info.DBO.%ParcelInfo.PropertyOwner.  (See the attached screenshot)

When publishing the service, Server connect to the data with the ArcGIS Server account (which is a domain account in our case) and replaces the "DBO" with our quoted domain\user, and then fully qualifies both the field name AND the alias.  For all of the fields in the parcel layer it fully qualifies the field name but the alias is simply the alias as formatted within ArcCatalog/ArcMap.

Pre-10.1, with the ODBC connection, the parcel layer field names are fully qualified and the fields from the joined table are simply the field name (not fully qualified) and the alias is simply the field name duplicated.

It almost seems like ESRI is just using the field name as the alias for joined tables when publishing rather than looking at the alias field and pushing that over, so could this be a "bug"?  Doesn't solve the immediate issue but maybe there isn't an immediate solution?

If I try to use an ODBC connection, Server wants to copy the data to the server because no data source is registered (nor can be at this time).  That creates a data maintenance headache due to how frequently the Assessor data gets updated and I would rather not go that route unless it is absolutely the only feasible solution.

I appreciate your thoughts on a solution to this.

BTW, this community does not thank you enough for all of the outstanding coding (and subsequent support) you have done for all of us.  I, for one, could not provide my users with some of this functionality as elegantly (and especially as timely) as you have.  Thanks for sharing and thank you to your employer for allowing you to spend the time!
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BrianOevermann
Frequent Contributor
It almost seems like ESRI is just using the field name as the alias for joined tables when publishing rather than looking at the alias field and pushing that over, so could this be a "bug"?


Robert,

I decided to test for my thought quoted above.  I created a test service, changing the alias of three of the joined table fields to something obviously different (I used dog, cat, elephant--no mistaking those!) and published the service.  In the resulting service the alias for each of those is the same as the field name (i.e. fully qualified with quoted domain user).

So publishing the map service definitely ignores the aliases for the joined table fields as they are defined in the mxd.  The question is:  Is this intended behavior by ESRI (hope not) or a bug?

Still doesn't solve the original issue for the short term, but...
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RobertScheitlin__GISP
MVP Emeritus
Brian,

   I am working on getting a text environment setup for this issue, but until I do can you test this in the IdentifyWidget.xml:

<field name='Assessor_Info."domain\user".%ParcelInfo.PropertyOwner' />
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BrianOevermann
Frequent Contributor
Robert,

That works as far as not throwing an error.  Flash Builder makes a comment about there being no grammar constraints (DTD or XML schema for the document.  Does the single quote wrapper work because no DTD is enforcing things?

So, the widget loads in the viewer but when I identify a parcel nothing for the field is returned.  BTW, in a second run I also added an alias tag and that works great as well, but still nothing returned.

With nothing being returned, I decided to check a query directly within the REST service environment.  I am attaching two screenshots.  One has the fully qualified field in both the "Where" input and the "Out Fields" input.  This fails to query.

The other screenshot has just the field name (not fully qualified) in the "Where" input and the fully qualified field in the "Out Fields" input.  This successfully returns results.

I tried a third scenario with just the field name in both the "Where" and "Out Fields" and it failed to query.

Let me know if you need me to test anything more.
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BrianOevermann
Frequent Contributor
Robert,

Were you ever able to test this further?  Any further ideas regarding possible workarounds?  I understand that you have a lot of demands on your time!
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RobertScheitlin__GISP
MVP Emeritus
Brian,

  I have made no progress. Hopefully this is something that will be resolved in SP1.
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BrianOevermann
Frequent Contributor
Robert,

Thank you for taking the time to look into this.  I, too, hope this is fixed in SP1.  In the meantime I guess I need to come up with some workarounds.
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RobertScheitlin__GISP
MVP Emeritus
Brian,

  I would not spend to much time on this.

This is an announcement for ArcGIS 10.1 SP1, planned to be available in  October 2012, and contains a list of issues targeted for this upcoming  release.


http://support.esri.com/en/downloads/patches-servicepacks/view/productid/160/metaid/1898
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