Introduction

The Feature Data Objects (FDO) API provides access to data in a data store. A provider is a specific implementation of the FDO API that provides access to data in a particular data store. The FDO Provider for ESRI ArcSDE provides FDO with access to an ArcSDE-based data store (that is, with an underlying, supported Oracle or SQL Server database).

The FDO Provider for ArcSDE has the following characteristics:

• You can connect to the FDO Provider for ArcSDE in one step if you already know the name of the data store that you want to use. Otherwise, you must connect in two steps.
• With the FDO Provider for ArcSDE, you can either lock rows in a table or version a table. You cannot do both at the same time. To do either one, you must first alter the table’s registration.
• The FDO Provider for ArcSDE does not support the creation or destruction of feature schema (that is,it does not support the FdoIApplySchema and FdoIDestroySchema commands.) However, it does support the FdoIDescribeSchema command. The FDO Provider for ArcSDE is intended to operate on already existing feature schemas, and it supports inserting, selecting, updating, and deleting data in existing schemas.

For more information, see The Essential FDO (FET_TheEssentialFDO.pdf) and the FDO Developer's Guide (FDG_FDODevGuide.pdf).