Export to Shapefile fails in ArcGIS 10

[BrynEnright]

Using the Feature Class to Feature Class tool or Copy Features tool fails when exporting to shapefiles and field lengths exceed 254 characters.  In 9.3.x, the fields were automatically truncated.  Is there a way to force the fields to truncate in 10?

[HeatherWidlund]

Did you ever get an answer to this problem? I'm having the same issue.

[RandyKreuziger]

I've also run into this.  It's bug NIM063382 - Geoprocessing fails when character length is greater than 254 for a field when converting to shapefile.  I see on the ESRi Customer Care Portal that it's marked resolved but the version resolved is listed at 10.1.  I don't know if that means we must live with it until then or not.  I'll call ESRI and let you know what I find out.

[MelitaKennedy]

It's currently marked as verified for 10.1 beta 2. It isn't marked as a service pack candidate, but that may not have been done yet (I think there's a 10.0 sp4 in the planning stages). A keyword if you haven't called yet: it's an equivalency issue. That is, it got broken at version 10.

Melita

[HeatherWidlund]

Thank you for the responses. I did submit a support request when my searches turned up no info except this thread, but haven't heard back. Somehow I missed the bug report.

Anyway, I guess I have to put off my automation scripts for a while, which is a bummer. Is there any way to escalate it to a patch or service pack?

[RandyKreuziger]

Heather, if you are paying maintenance have your customer number added to the bug.  That is the only way I know of to put pressure on ESRI.  Below I've pasted in the response I got from ESRI this past week and I asked about the status.  Not very encouraging!

-- esri support--
"From the information you provided so far, I understand that you are facing a problem with " Status of the bug# NIM063382".
I really apologize for the inconvenience your facing but the status of this issue is resolved in Arc GIS 10.1 and after having an intensive research at my end and discussion with the Senior Analyst, I apologize that there is no workaround currently available for the same."

[HeatherWidlund]

Here is what I heard back from Esri on this bug:

After reviewing the notes from development, I believe that this may actually be an intended change in the software to prevent the software from explicitly changing the user's data.  It is currently stated as repaired in version 10.1, but it's currently under discussion to implement this in a service pack for ArcGIS 10.0.

Although this behavior will still occur with service pack 3 installed there are several methods to repair your data in preparation for this issue.  You can either manually re-add the fields with a supported text field length of 254 characters or less, use python to automate re-add the fields with a supported text field length, create a template from the data and use the simple data loader to append the data into the modified template, use the append tool and specify no test on a template of the feature, etc.  Other than this, any gp tool that returns an output in shapefile format will error if it contains a text field with an unsupported field length for the shapefile format.

I should be able to work around this, but it will take some more experience with geoprocessing!