GIS520 DataCardinality

DataCardinality
Outline
TableAssociations Datacardinality MethodsforcreatingrelationshipsinArcGIS

TableAssociations
Establishingassociationsbetweentableswillallowaccessingdatainallrelated tables. AssociationsinArcGIS canbeestablishedbetweenmultipledataformats:suchas shapefiles,ArcInfo tables,featureclassesinpersonalgeodatabase,ortablesinan ArcSDE enterprisegeodatabase. Establishingassociationsbetweenalayer(spatialcontext)andatable(additional attributes)willallow: a)tosymbolizeorlabelfeaturesbasedonattributesfromthejoinedtableor b)toviewrecordsinacorrespondingtablewhenattributesareselectedinthe relatedtable Thewaytablesarerelatedtooneanotheriscalledcardinality.

DataCardinality
Therearefourcardinalitytypes: onetoone manytoone onetomany manytomany

Itisimportanttounderstandwhichrelationshiptype ispresentbetween thetablestopreventpotentialrecordemissionerror.

FormoreinformationonthebasicsofRelationshipsandArcGIS, viewArcGISResourceCenteronline
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Relationships_and_ArcGIS/004t000 00001000000/

MethodsforcreatingrelationshipsinArcGIS
InArcMaprelationshipscanbecreatedbyjoining orrelating tablestogether
UseJoin:foronetoone ormanytoone relationshipbetweenalayerandatable

Database Example: one-to-one relationship from a database where the unique identifier of Product ID is used to join two tables

MethodsforcreatingrelationshipsinArcGIS
InArcMap relationshipscanbecreatedbyjoining orrelating tablestogether. Userelate:ifthereisaonetomany oramanytomany relationshipbetweenalayer andatable.

EPA: Example one-to-many relationship: Coordinator is assigned one Region, which spans many States

MethodsforcreatingrelationshipsinArcGIS
Differencesbetweenjoinandrelate:
Join:
Allcolumnsfrombothtablesareappendedtogether intoonelargetable. Itwillallowtosymbolizeorlabelfeaturesbasedonattributesfromthejointable. Permitsonlyonetoone ormanytoone cardinality. Incorrectcardinalityresultsinomittedrecords.

Relate:
Temporaryassociationisestablishedbetweenthetables,whichissavedinanArcMapdocument. Therelatedtablesareviewedseparately. Itwillnotallowtosymbolizeorlabelfeaturesbasedonattributesfromtherelatetable. Canbecreatedbetweentablesofallcardinalitytypes. Canbecreatedregardlessofthecardinalitybetweentableswithoutthedangerofomitting information.

MethodsforcreatingrelationshipsinArcGIS
Thebasicsofcreatingrelationshipsbetweentablesinclude:
Findingthecommoninformationbetweenthetables Understandinghowvaluesineachjoincolumnmatch

Inordertoassociatetables:
Commoninformationhastoexistinbothtables suchas:countyname,zipcode,buildingID,parcelID,etc. Commoninformationhastobestoredasthesamedatatypeineachtable Thenamesofthecolumnstoberelateddonothavetobethesame Thedatatypeandvalues inbothcolumnsmustbethesame