Database Reference
In-Depth Information
Adding an attribute index
Suppose your clients started to perform attribute queries on their geodatabase, and they
asked you whether you could tune it for better performance. We will start by adding an at-
tribute index. However, the question is, on which attribute shall we create an index? Usu-
ally, this question is answered while modeling the geodatabase, where indexes are added in
the entity relationship diagram. Indexes are created on attributes that are frequently quer-
ied. In the
Bestaurants
geodatabase, the
Venue's Name
field is a good candidate to
create an index for. To create an attribute index, perform the following steps:
1. Copy the geodatabase in
8648OT_04_Files\Geodatabase
to the
c:\gdb
folder. You can create a backup of your geodatabase if you want to.
2. Open
ArcCatalog
.
3. Browse to the new geodatabases from the
Catalog Tree
window.
4. Right-click on the
Food_and_Drinks
feature class and select
Properties...
.
5. In the
Feature Class Properties
dialog, select the
Indexes
tab.
6. The
Attribute Indexes
section shows the existing indexes on the feature class. As
you can see, there is an
FDO_OBJECTID
index (the primary key), which is a
very important index that cannot be removed. The geodatabase uses this index to
uniquely identify each feature. When you click on
FDO_OBJECTID
, in the
Fields
section, you will see the field on which this index is created for, as shown in
the following screenshot:
