Extremely Slow Exporting a Joined Feature Class in Geodatabase

[YulunZhou]

Dear all,

I was trying to join a table (containing some useful attribute) to a feature (9m polygons) in Geodatabase.

The table has an ID that is matchable with an ID of the polygons.

The join was fast. But when I try to export the joined feature to either a shapefile or a table, it is extremely slow.

I wonder why is that exporting so slow and is there a better way to permanantly join the attribute contained in the table into the feature (9m polygons)???

Thanks so much.

[JayantaPoddar]

Hi Yulun,

9M is a huge no. of polygons. When u join it, it just takes up the unique attribute fields and joins. The non-spatial attributes still reside in the external table/excel sheet.

But when you are exporting the joined feature/table, it has create all the polygons/table once again.

I would still prefer working in a File GDB to shapefiles.

[YulunZhou]

Hi Jayanta,

Thank you very much.

I tried to export to a File GDB also. It is still extremely slow. The reason should be that it has to create all the polygons all over again, which you mentioned.

The overall purpose is to permanantly join the attributes to the feature, any good way of realizing it?

Yulun

[SepheFox]

Hi Yulun, shapefiles also have a size limit of 2GB, which you may exceed with so many features, so I would recommend exporting to a geodatabase. You might also try using the Join Field tool (ArcGIS Help 10.1), and only joining the fields you are interested in. This will reduce the amount of information and therefore file size.

[YulunZhou]

Hi Sephe,

Thank you for answering.

I already tried the GDB file and the join field tool. I think what you said makes sense, as the join field tool should reduce the amount of information to be processed. But the result is that it is still extremely slow. (Maybe faster than the exporting way, I never waited that long)

The overall purpose is to permanantly join the attributes to the feature, any good way of realizing it?

Yulun

[BirajaNayak]

Can you give us the detail requirement like what is the purpose  of join and what are information you are looking on a join table. Do you really need all 9m feature to be joined with all attributes or few of the feature which are required can be extracted to a new feature class and join.

If you are not editing the joined data, only used for view and query then how about spatial view or database view created from joined table and feature class.