Multifile feature connection datasets have a field property that defines field names, field types, and the visibility of the field for your dataset.
The following are some examples of when you should update your field information:
- Your source data is a collection of delimited files without a header. By default the fields are listed as col1, col2, col3, ..., coln. Update the field names and types to match what you expect.
- Your CSV dataset was registered with all string fields and you want to set one or more of the fields as numeric for use in analysis.
- Your dataset has many fields that are not needed for analysis. You can use the visibility property to set the fields as hidden so they are excluded from analysis and results.
- You want to simplify field names to make them more readable and intuitive.
Field properties details
The following are the three components of field properties:
- Name—A required property that denotes the field name. The field name must be unique to the dataset and can only contain alphanumeric characters and underscores.
- Viability—An optional property that denotes whether the field will be visible to geoprocessing tools. By default, fields that are initially set as time and geometry fields have visibility set to false. All other fields are set to true by default.
- Field type—A required property that denotes the type of field.
Changing the field properties for the multifile feature connection dataset does not modify your source datasets.
You can update the field type for delimited files. You cannot update the field type for other data sources (such as shapefile, ORC, or parquet files).
The following table outlines the geometry type in the source data, how it is represented in ArcGIS AllSource for geoprocessing, and notes about the availability of field types across source data types.
| Source field type | Geoprocessing field type | Notes |
|---|---|---|
Int8 | Short | |
Int16 | Short | |
Int32 | Long | |
Int64 | Big Integer | |
Float32 | Float | |
Float64 | Double | |
String | Text | |
Binary | Blob | Blob fields are only supported for parquet and ORC datasets. You can use them for geometry formatting of well-known-binary (WKB). |
Date | Date | Date fields are only supported for parquet, ORC, and shapefile-sourced dataset. To set date and time on a MFC dataset, use the time property. |
Boolean | Text | Boolean fields are only supported for parquet and ORC datasets. The field will be represented as a text field containing a value of T for True and a value of F for False. |