Determine when ArcGIS feature was created

Question

In ArcCatalog I'm looking at a feature's table fields. The DATECREATED column is empty for all features.

How can one determine when a specific feature was created?

Have you installed an Editor Extension or Class Extension that populates this field?
I was not involved with any of the installation. How can I check if these extensions were installed?
an editor or class extension would either be built "in-house" or as an add-on. Programs such as telvent miner & miner ArcFM have class extensions to add this type of workflow to your data.
Using categories.exe (in same folder as arcmap.exe) see what's in the ESRI GeoObject Class Extensions, or the ESRI Editor Extensions categories. In 10.1 I've heard Esri plans to provide tools that will populate this OOTB. Until then you would typically use an Editor Extension or Class Extension.

Brad Nesom · Accepted Answer · 2011-04-25 16:06:28Z

This would be very difficult to implement in shape file. I would have to assume that what you are looking at is not shape.

There are several ways to implement with differing levels of difficulty.

in a pgdb, fgdb, or rdbms. You can implement rules and make the field required. (you would need to establish a value for all existing rows). Anytime a new feature were created, or existing edited it would require a value to be input.
as mentioned by Kirk - you can use an extension to create "custom" objects that trigger the application to insert or request currdate.
If using an rdbms you could build an application in it to manage the triggers.

Thank you for those pointers. So it seems right now it's not possible to determine when the object was created.

1 Answer