How To: ESRI SDEIntercept

I have worked with GIS systems for many years now, working with both ESRI, Intergraph, and Bentley (if you count that MicroStation class I took in college) systems. Sometimes when you are working on client-side code, it is useful to see the actual calls from the client back to the database. One of the most useful and simple tools that I have found when working with ESRI’s ArcMap is to set up an SDE intercept. By doing this, intercept files are generated on the client machine that contain very verbose output pertaining to every transaction with the underlying geodatabase. The output can be overwhelming, but it can also be very revealing.

Setting up the intercept is very easy. You only need to add 2 environment variables to your system. The following are the variables and their values:

• SDEINTERCEPTLOC = c:\temp\<the subfolder you created to contain intercept files>
• SDEINTERCEPT = crwtf

You could also set these up with a bat file if you want.

After you have set these environment variables, run ArcMap and the workflow that you want to examine. You can then investigate the log generated to diagnose your issue.

Be sure to remove these environment variables when you are finished. The output is very verbose and can quickly fill up your hard drive!deProject