ArcGIS Developer Help

FeatureClass Class

Esri Feature.

Product Availability

Available with ArcGIS Engine, ArcGIS Desktop, and ArcGIS Server.

Supported Platforms

Windows, Solaris, Linux

Extended Error Information

Use the ISupportErrorInfo method InterfaceSupportsErrorInfo to determine if the object supports extended error information. If the object supports extended error info, VC++ developers should use the OLE/COM IErrorInfo interface to access the ErrorInfo object. Visual Basic developers should use the global error object Err to retrieve this extended error information.

Interfaces

Interfaces	Description
IFeature	Provides access to members that return and set properties of a feature.
IFeatureBuffer	Provides access to setting and returning the default shape in the feature buffer.
IFeatureChanges	Provides access to members that provide information about changes in the feature's shape.
IFeatureDraw	Provides access to members that control custom drawing by a feature.
IFeatureEdit2	Provides access to members implemented to customize feature editing.
IFeatureEvents	Provides access to events that happen when a feature is split or merged.
IFeatureProject	Provides access to project a feature's geometry.
IFeatureSimplify	Provides access to simplifying a feature's geometry.
IFeatureSimplify2	Provides access to methods that extend IFeatureSimplify.
IRelatedObjectEvents	Provides access to events that occur when related objects change, move or rotate.
IRow	Provides access to members that return information about the row, the table the row belongs to and storing and deleting the row.
IRowBuffer	Provides access to members used for getting and modifying a rows values and for getting the fields in the row.
IRowChanges	Provides access to members that return information about changed values and the original value in a row.
IRowCompare	Provides access to a member that compares two rows.
IRowEdit	Provides access to members implemented to customize object editing.
IRowEvents	Provides access to events that occur when an object is modified, created or deleted.
IRowSubtypes	Provides access to members to return and modify the subtype code and to initialize the default values.
ISupportErrorInfo (esriSystem)
IValidate	Provides access to members to validate individual features.

Remarks

A Feature is a spatial Object. It is also a member of a feature class, being a row in the feature class table. A feature has an associated shape, the type of which is defined by the feature class. The possible shape objects are Point, Multipoint, Polyline, Polygon, and Multipatch�these are all objects in the Geometry object model. See the GeometryDef object for more details.

Simple features are the most common type of features, but there are various special kinds as defined by the esriFeatureType enumeration. These include annotation, dimension, and various network features. Some feature types - such as Annotation and Dimension features - are implemented using a subclass of this class.

Using C++ you can also define your own custom features with specialized behavior. One thing to note is that all features still have the same core geometry types of point, multipoint, polyline, polygon and multipatch; an example of this is annotation features, whose geometry type is polygon�this represents the envelope of the text element.

All the discussion for Row and Object is appropriate to Feature objects.