Displaying .gdb content(Feature classes) in winidows forms

Question

I am having a .gdb file(World.gdb). I want to display or i want to see the content of this gdb file in winForms programmatically(C#). How can i do it? I dont want to view via ArcCatalog.

Please help soon.

Regards, Arun

Answer 1

Since file geodatabase is a proprietary format, you need to use Esri tools or other software (for example, FME) that has embedded this format.

Meantime, you are welcome to try the File GDB API Esri has released some time ago.

Answer 2

I find it handy to put INames in a Dictionary. Opening only open the featureclass when it is needed. Getting a list of INames is much less costly than getting a list of references to featureclasses (or tables).

public static Dictionary<string, IName> GetNames(IWorkspace ws)
{
    var outDict = new Dictionary<string, IName>(StringComparer.CurrentCultureIgnoreCase);

    IEnumDatasetName enumDSname = ws.get_DatasetNames(esriDatasetType.esriDTAny);
    if (enumDSname == null)
        return outDict;

    enumDSname.Reset();
    IDatasetName dsn;
    while ((dsn = enumDSname.Next()) != null)
    {
        outDict.Add(dsn.Name, (IName)dsn);
        var fdsn = dsn as IFeatureDatasetName;
        if (dsn is IFeatureDatasetName)
        {
            var enumDSname2 = dsn.SubsetNames;
            if (enumDSname2 != null)
            {
                IDatasetName dsn2;
                while ((dsn2 = enumDSname2.Next()) != null)
                {
                    outDict.Add(dsn2.Name, (IName)dsn2);
                }
            }
        }
    }
    return outDict;
}

Also, Esri recommends using Activator to instantiate the workspacefactory.

public static IWorkspace OpenWS(string gdbPath)
{
    var type = Type.GetTypeFromProgID("esriDataSourcesGDB.FileGDBWorkspaceFactory");
    var wsf = (IWorkspaceFactory)Activator.CreateInstance(type);
    if (!System.IO.Directory.Exists(gdbPath))
        throw new Exception("directory not found: " + gdbPath);
    if (!wsf.IsWorkspace(gdbPath))
        throw new Exception("not really a file gdb: " + gdbPath);
    return wsf.OpenFromFile(gdbPath, 0);
}

Answer 3

You can get feature class names from the .gdb file using IWorkspace interface, if you want to get get all feature class names. Then check if your desire feature class is present here or not.

Code is not tested

EDIT

List<string> GetAllDatasetNames(string gdbFilePath)
{
     IWorkspaceFactory workspaceFactory = new FileGDBWorkspaceFactory()
     IWorkspace workspace = workspaceFactory.OpenFromFile (gdbFilePath, 0);
     IEnumDataset enumDataset = workspace.get_Datasets(esriDatasetType.esriDTAny);
     List<string> names = new List<string>();
     IDataset dataset = null;
     while((dataset = enumDataset.Next())!= null)
     {
          names.Add(dataset.Name);
     }
     return names;
}