The Data Browser is used to review properties of selected features whether they are stored as XFM properties in the open design file or are coming from a database such as Oracle Spatial or Microsoft Access. While it’s not often that errors will be encountered, this article discusses tips to troubleshoot the problem in the event that data is not be displayed as expected. It’s also interesting to note, that although data may not display correctly in the Data Browser, the Analyze Element dialog doesn't reveal any problems.
The following graphic is an example of XFM feature attributes failing to display in the Data Browser. Where values are expected, only question marks appear. In addition, a red warning icon is shown in the left column.
Right-clicking an error icon will allow you to choose to 1) copy the error text, 2) copy the selected errors or 3) to save the selected errors. In this example, OpenCities Map is unable to retrieve features with a specific ID.
On their own, these error messages don’t provide enough information to correct the issue. A simple workaround is to export the data to a Shapefile via the Map Imports/Exports dialog. Any feature that generates an error will be recorded and logged in the MicroStation Message Center.
Reviewing the contents of the Message Details reveals that the MARKET_VALUE property contains values that exceeds the value length of five.
Further examination of the MARKET_VALUE field in the in the Data Browser confirms that only those values that are five characters or less are being displayed. This confirms that the error messages generated by the export procedure are correct.
Having found the cause of the error, it’s easy to correct by changing the length of the MARKET_VALUE field in the GSA project schema XML file from five to ten.
To see the effect of this change, an export of the XML metadata and restart of OpenCities map is required. And reloading the features into the Data Browser now shows all of the values, including those that exceed five characters.
Note regarding properties coming from a database: This error may also appear during when properties are imported from a database. In this case database properties of the type Double as set to a maximum of value size of 8. After importing database properties, a good housekeeping measure is to verify and increase the number of characters as needed. This will ensure that feature properties can be displayed by the Data Browser.