Latest Contributions by VinceAngelo

Note that the SDE tables are hidden from ArcGIS connections mostly for aesthetic reasons, but it's partly so that folks aren't inclined to try editing them outside the supported protocols of the geodatabase APIs.  It's generally unwise (and very unsupported) to alter SDE user tables via OLE-DB (or the ArcSDE API, for that matter).  Even the use of Access to manipulate (now deprecated) personal geodatabases is technically unsupported (even though it has been common and, for the most part, hasn't corrupted data). - V ... View more

You can't mix-n-match software releases, especially when there have been significant changes, as between PG 8.3.0 (for which ArcSDE 9.3 was certified) and PG 9.1 (which might not even be supported by ArcSDE 10.1).  Certification testing is difficult and time-consuming, so only the version that was current during ArcGIS development is "fully supported".  Minor releases are usually safe with most databases (even though they are not tested, they are assumed to work), but PostgreSQL has been more willing to introduce significant incompatibilities at even minor releases (as when the time datatype changed between 8.3.0 and 8.3.4), which makes straying from the System Requirements certification list riskier. Vince's First Law of Compatibility: For optimal stability, the application software should have been released after the server software, which should have been released after the operating system (tOS < tRDBMS < tGIS). Unfortunately, the disparity between release frequency of PostgreSQL and ArcGIS makes it difficult to use a recent PG with ArcSDE -- by the time an ArcGIS beta becomes a release, the "current" PG build is often incompatible.  I had been a big fan of PG, but I no longer have the time to keep upgrading; I can't imagine how large production shops would deal with this issue. - V ... View more

I'm pretty sure the ArcSDE provider is an AutoCAD product, and that Esri didn't have anything to do with its creation.  An AutoCAD forum would probably be a better place to look for help with this tool. I would note that the 'sde' login failures indicate that you're not using best practice on the ArcSDE side of the equation (the 'sde' login shouldn't ever own spatial data -- instead, create one or more data management accounts, and reserve the 'sde' user for ArcSDE administration). Good luck. - V ... View more

What storage type is being used in your layer?  If the storage is ST_GEOMETRY or SDO_GEOMETRY, then you really shouldn't use 'sdetable -o create_view' (instead, create the view with SQL, and register the result with 'sdelayer -o register'). What version of Oracle are you using (A.B.C.D notation)? I've seen extremely ugly query plans from Oracle 10gR1 (10.1.0.2) servers on views over SDO_GEOMETRY layers that resulted in 8 minute queries on a  view with 2000 rows (with a 7M row base table), but haven't seen anything like that with modern Oracle builds (unless the table was a remote view into another instance). Keep in mind that views can generate unhealthy queries without a spatial component, but that some spatial comparisons can be very expensive, so aligning the spatial comparison on the first table in the join is much more likely to hit the right index.  You should also explore the impact of hints and various indexes, and of table join order. - V ... View more

Doing the upgrade from ArcCatalog was new at 10.0 (previously upgrades were done with 'sdesetup', which would have had to have been updated before the upgrade could proceed).  If your clients are all Direct Connect, then the status of the application server build is less significant, but the application server should certainly be at the same release as the RDBMS. Sometimes my "terse" responses are interpreted as "gruff" -- I'm glad I could help. - V ... View more

If your ArcSDE is at 10.0SP1, and your Desktop at 10.0 SP3, your ArcSDE *is* available for upgrade. You *should* apply the upgrade, which would address the SP3 and SP2 issues to your instance (applying binary changes is only half an ArcSDE upgrade; you also need to update the database). - V ... View more

Creating a layer through the ArcSDE API is an advanced skill that I don't recommend until you can use the command-line tools in your sleep to create layers that are visible by ArcGIS (and the command-line tools themselves are an advanced skill over the ArcCatalog GUI).  Given a spatial index grid size of 1100 degrees, you've still got some learning curve yet to climb. I prefer to create ST_GEOMETRY or SDO_GEOMETRY storage layers using SQL, then add them to ArcSDE with 'sdelayer -o register'. If the ST functions aren't working, you'll need to ask with the keeper of the SDE user keys to contact Tech Support for help in straightening that out.  I don't have an example of the SQL query done by ArcGIS handy, but if some ST queries aren't functioning, then the draw failure is likely due to the lack of function support, not spatial index grid size or coordref precision. - V ... View more

The spatial type functions are owned by SDE and granted to PUBLIC.  You should never load spatial data as the SDE user (in my example, I wasn't SDE, which was why the prefix was required).  If you can't use the ST functions, you can't use ST_GEOMETRY. - V ... View more

Works fine for me: SQL> select sde.st_astext(shape) from envtest2; SDE.ST_ASTEXT(SHAPE) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- POINT  ( 4.97444600 12.51409000) POINT  ( 14.33015500 -12.69905900) POINT  ( -5.24724800 -7.37888000) POINT  ( 0.17672500 17.48991500) POINT  ( 11.33672200 -4.02122600) POINT  ( 18.29875200 19.66650600) POINT  ( -13.42461700 8.07447900) POINT  ( 5.70494200 -16.03418000) POINT  ( 0.77471700 -18.01138300) POINT  ( -19.03184400 12.74311800) POINT  ( -15.18393200 9.95293200) ... 50 rows selected. The last time I had a customer getting ORA-00942 on ST functions, they had somehow managed to revoke permissions from most of the SDE operators and deleted half the triggers. It was pretty ugly to get that instance running again. - V ... View more

DLLs live in 'bin' on Windows hosts; they belong in 'lib' on Unix hosts.  Specifying an LD_LIBRARY_PATH to 'lib' with the DLLs in 'bin' isn't going to work.  You'll need to change the Oracle libraries to point to the 'lib' directory as well. - V ... View more

In order to use the coordinate properties of an object-relational geometry type you need to *use* an object-relational geometry type.  Your layer is using SDEBINARY or SDELOB storage (which use an integer key to Fn and Sn tables), not ST_GEOMETRY or SDO_GEOMETRY.  If you execute the 'sdelayer -o describe_long' command on the table, you will see the storage format. The default storage option is set in the DEFAULTS keyword of the DBTUNE table, but the default DBTUNE contains keywords which will generate all supported storage types (this can be changed by the administrator, so there's no guarantee that's still the case in your instance).  While it's possible to convert storage type to SDELOB, ST_GEOMETRY, or SDO_GEOMETRY, I generally recommend creating a new table and transferring the contents to this table (there are many ways to do this, but you options may be limited by whether the table is registered with the geodatabase or if it's versioned). - V ... View more

My point is that ArcSDE is a very specific solution that is implemented in SQL databases. If these new databases support a recognizable geometry type, the logical integration point is not with an ArcSDE implementation, but with a QueryLayer driver. Perhaps the question you should be asking (through your marketing rep or via ideas.arcgis.com) is whether Esri has any plans to provide a DLL bridge mechanism to allow user-definable Query Layers, which you could then customize to support NoSQL databases. - V ... View more

Just one note to add on the "personal geodatabase" format -- Esri has deprecated support for Access-based geodatabases. 64-bit ArcGIS Server 10.1 will not support this format. Desktop will support it for a bit longer, but if you're just starting out, there isn't much good in heading down a known cul-de-sac with a sign stating "Dead End." - V ... View more

Shapefiles are larger, slower, and less flexible than file geodatabases. Most importantly, they are "lossy" (what you get out isn't what you put in -- truncating column names, restricting string fields to 254 characters, no international character support, poor resolution on dates, "zeroification" of NULL numeric values,...). I can't think of one reason to use shapefiles when a file geodatabase is an option. - V ... View more

Are you sure you want to "remove" 9.3.1?  Or do you want to *upgrade* to ArcGIS 10.0? Either way, the details are in the documentation (just use the upper left search field with "Uninstall ArcSDE" or  "Upgrade ArcSDE" or "Install ArcSDE").  Please do make sure you're using a supported SQL-Server 2005 build (SP2 or SP3) before you start the upgrade process. - V ... View more