Duplicate fields when exporting a feature class with sybtypes to a shapefile

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05-14-2013 08:04 PM
MichaelFifield
New Contributor
For some reason whenever I export a feature class to a shapefile I have been getting duplicate fields appearing at the end of the attribute table of the exported shapefile. The fields that are duplicating themselves are the fields that have subtypes. This is occurring for all feature classes that I export that have subtypes. It does not occur to feature classes without subtypes. Whenever a field is duplicated it is headed with 'd_(field name)'.

For example: I export a feature with the following fields that each have subtypes:

DATA_SRCE
ENV_VALUES
CAP_METH

In the exported shapefile they appear as duplicates at the end of the attribute table as this:

d_DATA_SRC
d_ENV_VALU
d_CAP_METH

Has anyone had a similar problem? Or might know why this is happening?
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10 Replies
DaleHoneycutt
Occasional Contributor III
I'm using 10.5 sp 5 and I'm finding that Feature Class to Feature Class will not write descriptions. Instead it will add the domain table to the output GDB as to satisfy the domain link in the field. I created a blank PGDB, used FC to FC with a domain linked FC as the input and a new layer as the output in the blank PGDB. After successful completion I see domain tables in my output PGDB and a Select By Attributes in ArcMap reveals that the layer is in fact referencing domain codes.

Can ESRI confirm this behavior in 10.0 SP5? As I understand the post above, the environment variable is not available in 10.0 but the functionality was expected to have been built into the FC to FC geoprocessing tool. Is that correct?


The environment variable only applies when writing shapefiles.  If you're copying a geodatabase feature class to another geodatabase, the necessary domain tables & values are created or updated in the output gdb.  This is the behavior you're seeing.  It's only when writing to shapefiles that descriptions are written (shapefile workspaces -- that is, system folders -- don't support domains).  So the behavior you're seeing is correct and has always been the behavior when copying from one gdb to another.
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