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Just found that a workspace I thought was working perfectly is not writing out BLOB attributes. The workspace creates schema attributes and writes out to a geodatabase. Unfortunately, the schema features for BLOB attributes--currently set with native_data_type = blob--are not writing out. So:

  • Can FME even write out Blob attributes in schema features to a geodatabase?
  • If so, what is the native_data_type to use for a BLOB attribute?
  • Is the native_data_type value in the case of a BLOB (or in any case for that matter) case-sensitive?

I have not been able to get FME to read BLOB fields from and existing geodatabase, so I don't have a native_data_type value to inspect. My BLOB attributes in the schema features currently have a native_data_type value of "blob" and an fme_data_type of fme_binarybuffer. Any insights? Thanks in advance for your help.

As far as I can tell, what you're describing should work. Try checking that it's not the reader that skips the blob contents. If nothing else works, consider escalating the issue with your FME Reseller or Safe Support.


As far as I can tell, what you're describing should work. Try checking that it's not the reader that skips the blob contents. If nothing else works, consider escalating the issue with your FME Reseller or Safe Support.

@david_r​ As is so often the case, your intuition on this problem is spot on: it is the FeatureReader that is skipping the BLOB fields in my workspace. The workspace is comparing the schema of an input GDB with the schema of a blank, standard GDB, in effect doing schema validation. The BLOB fields in several annotation feature classes are dropping out of the analysis as being not shared by the two schemas. I know this not to be the case. As you suspected, I was assuming that the standard GDB was at fault, that my original building of the standard GDB from schema features was flawed. Well, it is undoubtedly flawed in multiple ways, but this isn't one of them. Now, the fact that the FeatureReader schema reading skips BLOB fields--along with not reading attribute aliases as it is supposed to and not reading feature class aliases or feature datasets--is a different but no less major problem for me. Back to the grindstone! Thanks, David.


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