Updating Relationship Labels

Say you’ve just built a Geodatabase. Maybe from a Visio UML schema, maybe some other way. On detailed inspection you’ve found that either the forward or backward path label on one of your relationships is wrong. (As might happen if you’ve copied/pasted relationship definitions in your Visio and not changed the path labels.)

Now these labels are just as their name implies, “labels”. Kind of like an alias name on a feature class or a field. Difference is that you can’t change the label through the ArcCatalog user interface.

So… from here you could delete and re-create the relationship. Or go back to the beginning and re-create the Geodatabase (if this came from Visio you should certainly update the Visio model.) But, if it’s really inconvenient to do this, then ArcObjects offers a method to change the label. Add the VBA code below to your ArcCatalog, connect it to a button and give it a go.

Private Sub AlterRelationshipLabels()
  Dim gxApp As IGxApplication
  Dim gxObject As IGxObject
  Set gxApp = Application
  Set gxObject = gxApp.SelectedObject
  ' make sure something is selected
  If (Not (gxObject Is Nothing)) Then
    ' make sure data is selected
    If (Not TypeOf gxObject Is IGxDataset) Then
      MsgBox "Selected object is not a relationship class", vbInformation
    Else
      Dim gxDataset As IGxDataset
      Set gxDataset = gxObject
      Dim dataset As IDataset
      Set dataset = gxDataset.dataset
      If gxDataset.Type <> esriDTRelationshipClass Then
        MsgBox "Selected object is not a relationship class", vbInformation
      Else
        Dim relClass As IRelationshipClass
        Set relClass = dataset
        Dim relClassEdit As IRelClassSchemaEdit
        Set relClassEdit = relClass
        Dim vbResponse As VbMsgBoxResult
        Dim sLabel As String
        vbResponse = MsgBox("Old forward path label: " & relClass.ForwardPathLabel & _
          " Change it? ", vbYesNo)
        If (vbResponse = vbYes) Then
          sLabel = InputBox("Enter new forward path label:", "Forward Path Label")
          relClassEdit.AlterForwardPathLabel sLabel
        End If
        vbResponse = MsgBox("Old backward path label: " & relClass.BackwardPathLabel & _
          " Change it? ", vbYesNo)
        If (vbResponse = vbYes) Then
          sLabel = InputBox("Enter new backward label:", "Backward Path Label")
          relClassEdit.AlterBackwardPathLabel sLabel
        End If
      End If
  End If
End If
End Sub