Lab 5 Terms
Finally, I am home, and now I can finish my lab 5 terms. Boring yes, but hey, the big guy wanted it 
. so all of you others reading this, then just ignore it.
Anyway…
.DBF / Dbase File- A very old type of file that works well with Excel or other spreadsheet programs.
Select by Attributes- This allows me to select a feature from the map by a common attribute. For example, when looking at a map of the United States that shows all of the active passanger train stations around the country, I can ask ArcGIS to select all of the train stations that are in the MidWest by using the “select by attribute” feature.
Query- Once selection by attributes, a window pops up and asks you for queries. In the example above with the train stations, I may ask it to select the stations by selecting the following phrases: “STATE_NAME” = ‘Ohio’ OR “STATE_NAME” = ‘Illinois’ OR “STATE_NAME” = ‘Indiana’ etc. Then the query would go back to the map and highlight all of the active passanger train stations in those states.
Fields (In a table)- I am not too familiar with what this term means along with records in a table. But I can make an educated guess that when opening up an attributes table in ArcGIS, the columns (vertical) are considered fields, since each column has its own label such as name, FIPS, location, etc.
Records (In a table)- As mentioned above, I am not too fmailiar with this term. But, I can guess that it means all of the actual records (horizontal) in the table.
Attributes- I sort of confused myself with this and records in a table. I found it hard to really distinguish one term from the other. Overall, I can guess that attributes can be linked to the features they represent.
Relational Database- This is data that can relate to one another by similar attributes.
Join Function- This allows me to combine data into the attributes table only if the fields match.
Monitor Fire- Ummm..I’m assuming that Dr. Krygier wasn’t really serious about this one. But I hope it never happens to me.
Calculate/Field Calculator- This feature is familiar to me because I have used it in Excel before. Basically, this allows me to create a mathmatical equation where I use one or more fields in the data to create another field as a result.
There you go.
