Hi despina, didn't you tell us at UC2011, that in 10.1 it would be possible to rename and change a field? I just installed ArcGIS Desktop 10.1 beta, but I did not find out how to redefine an existing field.
This would be powerful. Not only changing character limits when you are short three characters for your description but being able to change strings to numeric or back again. I don't know how many times I've had to create a field then copy data to achieve the same result. Here's another idea along the lines of interactive to make it more user friendly, to customize maps using the database data power.
I can rename, resequence, and change data type of feature classes and tables - IF the data is a 'personal geodatabase' ... just close ArcGIS and open the personal geodatabase in Access.
Since ESRI and Microsoft seem to be intent to phase out .mdb files, it sure would be nice if this ability were developed by ESRI to work with file geodatabases ... in ArcCatalog
It was nice in the old ArcINFO to be able to add an item while specifying its exact location relative to the other items. It was also nice to be able to alter (rename) items. I wish such capabilities were included in ArcGIS before ESRI deprecates the old ArcINFO!
It is a strange restriction on inherent database behavior (in SQL Server anyway) not to be able to rename a field/column in a supported way even on unversioned data.
I know sdetable -o alter_column -x disallow_nulls exists, but I've had troubles using it - the database gets updated but not the SDE column registry.
I'm posting this as well as putting it here. In what I think is the most complex situation - a feature class in a dataset with versioning and archiving in play, and part of a topology rule, you need to work in the following order to avoid difficulties:
1) disable archiving on dataset 2) remove versioning on feature classes referenced by topology 3) delete topology 4) run a python script to create a new version of the feature class, retaining the data and recreating relationship classes lost when the olve version was dropped 5) create topology 6) apply versioning to feature classes referenced by topology 7) run Register as versioned ... at the dataset level 😎 enable archiving on dataset
