Problem refreshing an Oracle table in MapInfo that's been updated in Oracle

Question

Dear all
I am doing some digitising work in MapInfo Professional 8, using a table stored in Oracle 10.2g. I have completed the bulk of my digitising and the polygons have been written back to the Oracle database without any issues.
As I am working with several maps coving the same area, but from different dates, I have simply been copying the shapes from one field to another, for areas that are the same on other maps. This avoids having to digitise an area more than once.
Here is an example of my table:
map_index_id  original_map_publication_id  name_of_feature         geographical_coordinates
5000840       200016                       NORTH STREET            MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY [1a]
5000841       200016                       NORTH STREET QUADRANT   MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY [2a]
5000843       200016                       OLD STEINE              MDSYS.SDO_GEOMETRY [3a]
5000955       200021                       NORTH STREET            null [1b]
5000956       200021                       NORTH STREET QUADRANT   null [2b]
5000957       200021                       OLD STEINE              null [3b]The idea is that the geometry of 1a is copied to 1b, 2a to 2b and so on. The script I am using to do this, is as follows:
undefine name_of_feature_to_be_used
undefine name_of_feature_to_be_updated
UPDATE MAP_INDEX  B
SET (B.geographical_coordinates) =
(SELECT A.geographical_coordinates
FROM MAP_INDEX A
WHERE A.original_map_publication_id=&&original_map_to_be_used
AND A.name_of_feature='&&name_of_feature_to_be_used')
WHERE B.original_map_publication_id=original_map_to_be_updated
AND B.name_of_feature='&&name_of_feature_to_be_updated';That works okay. The problem I have is that whenever I make changes to the geographical_coordinates column, which is an sdo_geometry column, the changes are not then being picked up by MapInfo Professional when I click refresh DBMS table in that program.
If I make additional changes in MapInfo and then save the table out, it simply wipes all the changes I have made in Oracle, using my above SQL script.
I believe what happens when a table is first made mapping in MapInfo, is that MapInfo takes the Oracle sdo_column: geographical_coordinates and links this to a MapInfo column called obj , since MapInfo seems to only allow the spatial column to be called obj. All other columns are brought in using their Oracle names. What I think it isn't doing though, is relinking this column at any point afterwards.
Am I correct and if so, does anyone have a away round this problem? I made my Oracle table "download table [link to Oracle]". Would keeping the table live, make any difference?
Kind regards
Tim

Answer 1

Hi Ivan and everyone
Thank you for your reply. The geometries are not always the same. I have now found out what the problem is and how to solve it and I will explain this for the benefit of others.
When I update a spatial column for a row ,outside of MapInfo Professional 8, it is not picking up the updates.
When I update a non-spatial column for a row, outside of MapInfo Professional 8, it is picking up the updates.
When I update a non-spatial column and a geometry column for a row, outside of MapInfo Professional 8, it is picking up the updates for both columns.
Therefore a solution to my problem is to create an additional non-spatial column, which I update everytime I copy the geometry values. Then when I refresh the table in MapInfo, it will pick up the geometry changes. I do not understand why MapInfo will not pick up the updates to the spatial columns on their own but it is not doing this.
I did a test to see what would happen if I updated three rows where all three rows had there geometry values updated but only two rows had a non-spatial column value updated.
When opened up the table in MapInfo, using the following MapInfo SQL:
Select * From "user name here"."MAP_INDEX_FOR_MAPINFO_USE"
WHERE not GEOGRAPHICAL_COORDINATES Is Null
AND original_map_publication_id=200010
AND original_map_sheet_number_id=330010it brought in only the two rows whose non-spatial column had been updated. The row where only it's spatial column was amended, was not brought in. There was no other rows brought in because no other row for that publication and sheet had been updated.
Why this is occurring I do not know. It may be that issue was resolved in later versions of MapInfo. I am very happy to have found a solution to my problem. However I do feel it is something I should not be having to do in the first place, no matter how pleased I am to have found a solution.
Kind regards
Tim