Latest Contributions by Bud

Are file geodatabases an extension of a different kind of database engine under the hood? For example, are FGDBs a customized version of an SQLite database? I'm aware that FGDBs are proprietary and inaccessible outside of ArcObjects. But it would still be helpful to know what kind of database Esri might have started with when architecting FGDBs. I assume the core non-spatial database component wasn't built 100% from scratch. Knowing what the original database was would help inform how we use SQL when writing SQL expressions on FGDBs in ArcGIS. Or even when writing database views on FGDBs*. Thanks. ... View more

What SQL client do you recommend for querying mobile geodatabases? (SQLite) For example, Toad, SQuirreL, or something like that. ... View more

I'm working with a FC that has data, of sorts, stored in the symbology.  What I mean is: there is UNIT information in the symbology as labels, yet that UNIT information doesn't exist in a field in the attribute table of the FC anywhere. I want to copy or export the information from the symbology to a table -- to be used as a lookup table that I'll use to add/populate a UNIT field in the FC. I've looked in the docs and poked around in ArcGIS Pro. As far as I can tell, there isn't an OOTB tool to copy or export the information from the symbology classes to a table. Could Esri consider adding that functionality to ArcGIS Pro? Or, I suppose the holy grail would be: Idea: Convert symbology labels to a field in a feature class ... View more

To open the attribute table of a feature class, the right-click menu option is "Attribute Table":   To open the attribute table of a standalone table, the right-click menu option is "Open": As a new ArcGIS Pro user: When I go to open the attribute table of a standalone table, I often overlook the "Open" option. I think I'm usually looking for an "Attribute Table" button, or something like that, not "Open". Idea: Could the terminology be made more consistent for those two scenarios? I.e., make both be "Attribute Table". I think that would be more intuitive for new users.   ... View more

I thought I’d share some thoughts on Esri as a company and the ArcGIS platform, as someone who temporarily left the GIS industry, and then came back: In my opinion, Esri seems to be a well-run company with great staff that make quality software. As much as we like to complain about things in ArcGIS that cause us grief, I find working with ArcGIS products to generally be a positive experience. For example, the docs and support are impressively good, the software in general does what we need it to do and isn’t overly buggy, Esri is always innovating new & improved tech, and of course, the communities are extremely helpful and are well-run. As my IT department said, “ArcGIS is the only platform we have that people actually like.” In comparison, other big software companies like IBM are not as well run, in my opinion. To be blunt, the docs are terrible, the software is buggy, innovation is lacking, working with support is frustrating, and don’t get me started on licensing or their add-on products. Those are some of the reasons I left the IBM industry and came back to GIS. And since I’ve been back, I’ve noticed that my IT department was right: GIS professionals really are an exception in the office; we enjoy what we do. And having good, flexible software is one of the main reasons. Like I said, it might seem like we complain a lot. But that’s just because we hold Esri to a high standard. What I mean is: ArcGIS is already a high-quality platform. We can see that it’s really close to being exactly what we need, so we push for improvements to try to get the best possible solutions. Whereas, other platforms are so lacking that you don’t really know where to start. So, I just want to say: Kudos to Esri staff. And keep up the good work!   ... View more

It would be helpful if we could control the logic used for getting the records on the many side of [one-to-first] joins. For example, choose an ORDER BY field: Grab the related record with the latest date, or the largest integer, etc. Specify ascending or descending order. Even better, make it a user-defined ORDER BY sql clause, so that we can use specialized logic like: SQL CASE statement Multiple sorting fields, some ASC and some DESC NULLS FIRST or NULLS LAST (relatively unknown SQL functionality) Specify how nulls are sorted in the attribute table (nulls first or last) Related: Choose if join will be 1:1 or 1:Many ... View more

It would be helpful if we could create query layers on mobile geodatabase data. For example, create a query layer to roll up features using GROUP BY. And loads of other functionality that's only available in full-blown SQL queries.   Related post: Support query layers for file geodatabases ... View more

It would be very helpful if we could create query layers on file geodatabase data. Even though FGDBs don't have a SQL spatial type like ST_GEOMETRY, it would still help to use non-spatial SQL in full blown SQL queries on file geodatabases. ... View more