I have a question about how a spatial view is stored and if it is update-able in a file GDB. I copied a group of objects out of a relational SDE geodatabase into a file GDB and some of the objects are spatial views. They seemed to copy fine but then I realized "how is a spatial view defined for a file GDB"?
My understanding is that a spatial view is technically a view defined at a relational database level against base tables maintained by the ArcGIS metadata so that the geometry can render and process correctly. But is a spatial view in file GDB stored as an "internal view" against the base tables in the GDB file? I started cleaning up some the base tables in this file GDB, renaming the table names and such and it seems like the data in these spatial views did not change. This tells me that a spatial view in a file GDB is some kind of "snapshot" set of data taken at the time when the spatial view was copied from the original relational SDE database, sort of like a materialized view in common relational databases. if it is just a materialized snaphot, is update-able or refreshable then or would a file GDB spatial view then need to be deleted and re-created to be updated?
Any thoughts on this?
-Jim
