Frequently asked question

How does Arcview interpret different field types from external data sources?

Last Published: April 26, 2020

Answer

When adding a table to ArcView using an SQL connection, ArcView creates a temporary dBASE file to hold the data. The field types in the original table must be mapped to the field types available in the dBASE file format. The following table describes how these fields are interpreted.
 
RDBMS Field Type  dBASE Field Type  Width Range  Precision Range

BYTE              DECIMAL             4            0 
DOUBLE            DECIMAL             1-20         1-18 
FLOAT             DECIMAL             1-20         1-18 
LOGICAL           LOGICAL             0-UNK        0 
LONG              DECIMAL             11           0 *
MONEY             DECIMAL             1-20         1-18 
SHORT             DECIMAL             6            0 
DECIMAL           DECIMAL             1-20         1-18 ** 
CHAR              CHAR                1-254        0 
VCHAR             CHAR                1-254        0 
DATE              DATE                0-UNK        0 
ISODATE           CHAR                1-254        0 
ISOTIME           CHAR                1-254        0 
ISODATETIME       CHAR                1-254        0 
UNSUPPORTED       UNSUPPORTED         0-UNK        0-UNK  ***


* LONG fields from Oracle are unsupported by Arcview.
** NUMBER field widths from Oracle are increased by 3.
*** Can be created in Arcview and recognized as an unsupported field type.

Article ID:000002947

Software:
  • Legacy Products

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