HOW TO

Update shapefiles with duplicate field names

Last Published: April 25, 2020

Summary

Instructions provided describe how to update shapefiles with duplicate field names. ArcIMS Author does not accept shapefiles with duplicate field names.

Procedure

ArcIMS only recognizes the first ten characters of an attribute field name. This is a limitation of the dBase format.
Exporting data to a shapefile can result in duplicate field names, even if all of the field names are unique in the primary datasource.

Use the following resources to fix this problem:

  1. Identify duplicate field names:
    Click on the link below or go to the Arcscripts section at http://arcscripts.esri.com and select ArcIMS as the software. In the list that appears there is a program named: 'Identify duplicate fields in Dbf files (use with ArcIMS)'. This program looks through the .dbf files of the shapefiles and identifies what fields are duplicated. See Related Information for more details.
  2. Change duplicate field names:
    Click on the link below in Related Information or go to the Arcscripts section at http://arcscripts.esri.com and select ArcIMS as the software. In the list that appears there is a program named dupFixer. The program mangles duplicate field names in the dBase files to work around this problem.
  3. Make the changes manually by way of ArcCatalog. See the following KB article for details:

    See the article: "Edit shapefile field names as uppercase for use in ArcIMS" by way of the Related Information section below.

Article ID:000006843

Software:
  • Legacy Products

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