Some people call be obsessive. I prefer more flattering terms, like 'determined' and 'optimistic'
WHY I CAN'T I JOIN THIS DATA TO THE ATTRIBUTE TABLE OF A SHAPE FILE IN ArcView???
I wasted a whole fucking day at work trying to figure this out, and I plan on wasting my entire weekend until I do. Okay that's not true, but I did bring it home, and I will figure it out. Alright, it might be true. We'll see.
I had it joined. It worked. I burned it to CD. It still worked. I joined the data file to an older version of the same shape file on two coworkers computers running ArcView 3.x. That still works. Now the same unmodified files won't join properly in ArcView 8.3 or 9 on separate computers. This is seemingly impossible.
In 8.3, when I join I don't get any errors until I open the attribute table. In 9, I get a 'this field is not indexed...' message but I tell it to index and it appears to finish okay. When I go to open the SHP's attribute table, it tells me the data 'cannot be displayed' but labeling features based on the data still works. WTF??? I need to see the stupid fucking attribute table.
I tried an older version of the layer file, several versions of the data file, and simple tweaks like converting the .DBF to a .CSV. Nada. I cannot fully reconstruct the evil SHP file, but I think using the older version eliminated any possibility that it is corrupted. ESRI has no useful joining troubleshooting guides that I can locate (a simple search of the error returned unrelated problems with different file types).
I am joining by attribute, and I am joining from a .DBF to the shape file. I have tried left inner and left outer joins. A left inner join from the shape file to the DBF, sort of: some of the data fields from the layer file will not display, and it takes half a year to open the attribute table. In any event, it's not the join I need. That led me to believe the attribute fields in the shape file are fucked up, because even when the join works the data won't display. So I deleted all the fields except the primary key. It still wouldn't work.
I am out of ideas, and I am terribly disappointed in ESRI for providing such piss-poor data management tools in ArcView. Bastards.
I have only one not-so-simple idea left: rebuild all of the data in Access so I can be sure the field properties are correct for the data they contain. I still think there is a simple answer I am overlooking...but 8 hours and $170 of taxpayer dollars later I'm no closer to finding it.
I wasted a whole fucking day at work trying to figure this out, and I plan on wasting my entire weekend until I do. Okay that's not true, but I did bring it home, and I will figure it out. Alright, it might be true. We'll see.
I had it joined. It worked. I burned it to CD. It still worked. I joined the data file to an older version of the same shape file on two coworkers computers running ArcView 3.x. That still works. Now the same unmodified files won't join properly in ArcView 8.3 or 9 on separate computers. This is seemingly impossible.
In 8.3, when I join I don't get any errors until I open the attribute table. In 9, I get a 'this field is not indexed...' message but I tell it to index and it appears to finish okay. When I go to open the SHP's attribute table, it tells me the data 'cannot be displayed' but labeling features based on the data still works. WTF??? I need to see the stupid fucking attribute table.
I tried an older version of the layer file, several versions of the data file, and simple tweaks like converting the .DBF to a .CSV. Nada. I cannot fully reconstruct the evil SHP file, but I think using the older version eliminated any possibility that it is corrupted. ESRI has no useful joining troubleshooting guides that I can locate (a simple search of the error returned unrelated problems with different file types).
I am joining by attribute, and I am joining from a .DBF to the shape file. I have tried left inner and left outer joins. A left inner join from the shape file to the DBF, sort of: some of the data fields from the layer file will not display, and it takes half a year to open the attribute table. In any event, it's not the join I need. That led me to believe the attribute fields in the shape file are fucked up, because even when the join works the data won't display. So I deleted all the fields except the primary key. It still wouldn't work.
I am out of ideas, and I am terribly disappointed in ESRI for providing such piss-poor data management tools in ArcView. Bastards.
I have only one not-so-simple idea left: rebuild all of the data in Access so I can be sure the field properties are correct for the data they contain. I still think there is a simple answer I am overlooking...but 8 hours and $170 of taxpayer dollars later I'm no closer to finding it.