Fields query

[BernardMcDermott]

I need to create a field within a FC that is basically a NOTES field for a taskforce to enter notes on phonecalls and the basic outcome of the call and incident.  Which is the best field type to chose?  It is mostly text data being input, is 50 characters the max?


Thanks for your response.

[ChrisSnyder]

A regular "Text" field type should be fine, and no, you are not limited to 50 characters - that is just the default (i.e. "suggested") value. The max character limit will be different depending on the database type (FGDB vs Oracle vs Shapefile/dbf vs PGDB). I think there may be more elaborate ways to store formatting (page breaks, indents, bullets, etc.) using a BLOB field type, but I don't know much about that. If it's just a "note", I think just a regular text field would work fine though.

[BernardMcDermott]

Thanks Chris.  How are you with 'strange' error messages?   I just received an error pop up stating 'A Failure occurred copying features.  The coordinates or measures are out of bounds".  I cannot figures this one out.

Thanks again.

[KimOllivier]

If you don't need measures then make sure that they are disabled, or drop them. Sometimes the range of valid measures also defaults to much smaller than you might have by default. When you define new featureclasses in 'high precision' then always define a projection to let ArcGIS calculate suitable limits for xy and m values.

Have a look at your coordinate system extents to see if they are unexpectedly small.