Default configuration keywords specific to SQL Server

In addition to the default DBTUNE keywords common to all DBMSs that were listed in the topic Types of configuration keywords, there are ten SQL Server-specific configuration keywords present by default in the SDE_dbtune table. Nine of them have to do with specifying geometry storage. The tenth, IMS_GAZETTEER, controls the XML column type used with an ArcIMS gazetteer metadata service.

Geometry storage keywords

The following three keywords contain two parameters: the GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter to set the feature class geometry storage type and the UI_TEXT parameter to allow the keyword to be used when creating data in ArcCatalog and other ArcObjects applications.

• WKB_GEOMETRY—When this keyword is specified at feature class creation, the storage type for the geometry column is set to the Open Geospatial Consortium, Inc.'s (OGC), well-known binary (WKB) type.

  The following text shows how the keyword appears in the dbtune.sde file:

  ##WKB_GEOMETRY
  GEOMETRY_STORAGE        "OGCWKB"
  UI_TEXT		"User interface text"

  This storage type provides a portable representation of geometry as a contiguous stream of bytes. The OGC well-known binary representation supports only simple 2D geometries.

• GEOMETRY—When specified at feature class creation, this keyword sets the storage type for the geometry column to use the Microsoft Geometry type. This can only be used with SQL Server 2008 databases.

  This is how the keyword appears in the dbtune.sde file:

  ##GEOMETRY
  GEOMETRY_STORAGE	"GEOMETRY"
  UI_TEXT		"User interface text"

  The Microsoft Geometry type is a SQL-compliant spatial data type used for data that uses planar spatial reference systems.

• GEOGRAPHY—When specified at feature class creation, this keyword sets the storage type for the geometry column to use the Microsoft Geography type. This can only be used with SQL Server 2008 databases.

  This is how the keyword appears in the dbtune.sde file:

  ##GEOGRAPHY
  GEOMETRY_STORAGE	"GEOGRAPHY"
  UI_TEXT		"User interface text"

  The Microsoft Geography type is a SQL-compliant spatial data type used for geodetic spatial data. See ArcSDE and the Microsoft spatial types for more information.

• If the GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter under the DEFAULTS keyword in the SDE_dbtune table is set to SDEBINARY or OGCWKB and you create feature classes in your geodatabase that use GEOMETRY or GEOGRAPHY storage, you must use storage-specific keywords when you create a topology, terrain, or geometric network associated with those feature classes. The keywords are as follows:
  • NETWORK_GEOGRAPHY
  • TERRAIN_GEOGRAPHY
  • TOPOLOGY_GEOGRAPHY
  • NETWORK_GEOMETRY
  • TERRAIN_GEOMETRY
  • TOPOLOGY_GEOMETRY

  The first three contain a GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter set to GEOGRAPHY, and the last three have a GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter set to GEOMETRY. For example, if you create a feature class, gasmains, using the GEOGRAPHY keyword, you must use the NETWORK_GEOGRAPHY keyword when you create a geometric network involving the gasmains feature class. The GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter must be set in all parts of the composite configuration keyword. For example, for TOPOLOGY_GEOMETRY, the GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter must be added and set to GEOMETRY under the TOPOLOGY_GEOMETRY and TOPOLOGY_GEOMETRY::DIRTYAREAS keywords.

As mentioned in the topic Types of configuration keywords, if you specify a keyword that only has a few parameters, the rest of the parameters are read from the DEFAULTS configuration keyword. Therefore, if you specify GEOMETRY when you create a feature class in a geodatabase in SQL Server, the software uses the values for the GEOMETRY_STORAGE parameter from the GEOMETRY keyword, then goes to the DEFAULTS keyword for values for all the other parameters, such as B_STORAGE.

See Composite keywords and geometry storage for details on setting up network, terrain, and topology keywords for nondefault geometry types.

IMS_GAZETTEER keyword

The IMS_GAZETTEER keyword is designed to be used when storing data associated with an ArcIMS Gazetteer Metadata Service. It specifies that XML documents be stored using ArcSDE XML, which is the only supported XML type for ArcIMS Metadata Services.

##IMS_GAZETTEER
XML_COLUMN_STORAGE   "SDE_XML"

END

When you run the gazetteer import script to load the gazetteer export files, the IMS_GAZETTEER keyword is used by default. For more information about ArcIMS Metadata Services and the gazetteer, refer to the ArcIMS Metadata Service section of the ArcIMS help.