[Gvsig_english] Export Shapefile behaviour with Joined Tables

[Simon Cropper (Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd)]

Hi,

This is another - "it would be better" issues.

When you join two tables and then export the shapefile to "hard code" 
the information so to speak. Despite having unique names the resulting 
attribute table to the exported shapefile has "j_" in front of all the 
field names. This is frustrating because if you have a field name, like 
I did, Active2005, Active2007 and Active2009 once this prefix is added 
the resulting table has tree fields called "J_ACTIVE20" as the fields 
are truncated to 10 characters.

I suppose I could understand this behaviour if you have duplicate fields 
in the original joined table (i.e. the use of a prefix) but the creation 
of a table that has duplicate field names is a violation of the rules 
around DBFs (i.e. you can't have two fields the same).

The export facility should review the output file's attribute table 
names and confirm that duplicate names have not been generated.

Personally, I think that if you have a joined table and no fields have 
the same name then the exported table should just be a reflection of 
this - i.e. the "J_" should not be inserted.
-- 

Cheers Simon

Simon Cropper
Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
PO Box 160, Sunshine, Victoria 3020.
P: 9311 5822. M: 041 830 3437.
mailto: scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au 
<mailto:scropper at botanicusaustralia.com.au>
web: www.botanicusaustralia.com.au <http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au>