[GIS] ArcMap tables – copying multiple horizontal cells between rows

arcgis-10.1arcmapattribute-tablecopy

I would like to be able to select a contiguous set of horizontal cells in a row, take a copy, then paste the values into another row at the same position in the same table. I do not want to copy all the attributes, only a subset, but they are at least contiguous. At the moment I am doing a simple copy-paste cell-by-cell, and it is very time consuming, not to mention frought with error. If it were in a spreadsheet, it would be as simple as highlighting the group of horizontal cells, taking a copy, move the cell cursor down one cell, and then doing a paste. Is this possible without going through an export/edit/import process. Thoughts greatly appreciated. Barrie

Best Answer

There is an existing ArcGIS Idea covering this functionality that you can vote for.

In the meantime a workaround may be as follows:

This will work only on a feature class NOT a table so if you need a table create a feature class with the same number of records and use Join Fields to make a temporary feature class that you can turn back to a table later.
Hide all Fields on the Properties of the feature class except the ones you want to copy/paste - they do not have to be adjacent
Start Editing
Select All
Open the Attributes (Editing) window
Right click on one row (which only has the unhidden fields) to Copy it
Right click on another row (or rows) and Paste
Unhide all the Fields again and you will see that just the cells unhidden during the Copy/Paste operation were changed

Personally, I would be more inclined to use the export/edit/import via Excel route that you suggested.

Related Solutions

[GIS] Merge Spatially Coincident Features in the Same Feature Class

Since you know how to iterate and find the features that you want to merge, I would build a function to do the merge which could probably be arcpy.Dissovle_management(). Do the dissolve and you can probably use the aggregating parameters to combine the attributes then delete those features from the original and update the data back with a insert cursor.

How do you identify which features need to get merged?

[GIS] Use arcpy.da.searchcursor to select rows to dissolve

Here is a rough draft of what I think you are after. Use the cursor to get the OBJECTID's that you need. I don't think that the da.SearchCursor is needed. The values from the cursor are used to form a SQL where clause in making a feature layer with only the two needed polygons. From there, dissolve with appropriate name. You will need to fit this your needs and give it some testing and error handling, but should give you a start.

import arcpy

arcpy.env.workspace = "...\\your_gdb"

FC = "BLPUsCavPlace"
TABLE = "BLPUsCavPlaceContigBLPUs"
FIELDS = ["blpuid", "contigid"]

with arcpy.SearchCursor(TABLE, FIELDS) as cursor:
    for row in cursor:
        OID1 = str(row[0])
        OID2 = str(row[1])
        SQL = "OBJECTID = %s OR OBJECTID = %s"%(OID1, OID2)
        arcpy.MakeFeatureLayer_management(FC, "TEMP_LYR", SQL)
        OUTPUT_NAME = "Dissolve_%s_%s"%(OID1, OID2)
        arcpy.Dissolve_management("TEMP_LYR", OUTPUT_NAME)
        arcpy.Delete_management("TEMP_LYR")

it may be the with/as, so try:

rows = arcpy.SearchCursor(TABLE, FIELDS)
for row in rows:
    OID1 = str(row[0])
    OID2 = str(row[1])
    SQL = "OBJECTID = %s OR OBJECTID = %s"%(OID1, OID2)
    arcpy.MakeFeatureLayer_management(FC, "TEMP_LYR", SQL)
    OUTPUT_NAME = "Dissolve_%s_%s"%(OID1, OID2)
    arcpy.Dissolve_management("TEMP_LYR", OUTPUT_NAME)
    arcpy.Delete_management("TEMP_LYR")

EDIT: this one is almost there, just having a problem with the output name as in the comment below

FC = "BLPUsCavPlace"
TABLE = "BLPUsCavPlaceContigBLPUs"
FIELDS = ["blpuid", "contigid"]
with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(TABLE, FIELDS) as cursor:
    for row in cursor:
        OID1 = str(int(row[0]))
        OID2 = str(int(row[1]))
        SQL = "OBJECTID = %s OR OBJECTID = %s"%(OID1, OID2)
        arcpy.MakeFeatureLayer_management(FC, "TEMP_LYR", SQL)
        OUTPUT_NAME = "Dissolve_%s_%s"%(OID1, OID2)
        arcpy.Dissolve_management("TEMP_LYR", OUTPUT_NAME)
        arcpy.Delete_management("TEMP_LYR")

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[GIS] Merge Spatially Coincident Features in the Same Feature Class

[GIS] Use arcpy.da.searchcursor to select rows to dissolve

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