Customizing the geodatabase


Summary This topic describes the types of custom components that can be integrated into the geodatabase application programming interface (API) and provides references to topics with more information.

In this topic


Geodatabase extensions

Geodatabase extensions allow developers to associate custom behavior with geodatabases and geodatabase datasets. A common example of this is the Timestamper class extension, which defines event handlers that automatically populate Date and Time fields when a feature is created or modified in a class that has the extension applied to it. For more information about geodatabase extensions, see the following topics:

Plug-in data sources

Plug-in data sources provide developers with a mechanism for integrating custom data sources into the ArcGIS framework in a read-only manner. Implementing a plug-in data source allows users to consume feature data from the data source as though it were provided with ArcGIS out-of-the-box. For example, datasets can be viewed in ArcCatalog, added to ArcMap as feature layers, or passed to a geoprocessing tool. Plug-in data sources are typically created for proprietary or non-standard data sources. For more information about plug-in data sources, see the following topics:






Development licensing Deployment licensing
ArcView ArcView
ArcEditor ArcEditor
ArcInfo ArcInfo
Engine Developer Kit Engine Runtime: Geodatabase Update