ArcPy – Fixing AttributeError When Displaying Attribute Field Value in TextElement

Question

I am new in Python scripting. I have a geodatabase with layer Test and this layer has field Name and Text element on layout named TEname. I am trying to show selected feature attribute Name value in Text element, but I could not do it. I can print the value for selected feature, but can't show it in Text element.

Here is the code I use:

import arcpy


mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("current")
TEname = arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd,"TEXT_ELEMENT","Name")[0]

for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor("Test","name")
     print row

…
(u'Land plot 1',)

for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor("Test","name"):
    TEname.text = row

…

TEname.text = row

Runtime error
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
File "c:\program files (x86)\arcgis\desktop10.5\arcpy\arcpy\arcobjects_base.py", line 89, in _set
return setattr(self._arc_object, attr_name, cval(val))
RuntimeError: TextElementObject: Error in setting text

Answer 1

You have set TEname to a list of text element objects when you do this:

TEname = arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd,"TEXT_ELEMENT","Name")

To get a single text element object from that list use an index of 0 on that list:

TEname = arcpy.mapping.ListLayoutElements(mxd,"TEXT_ELEMENT","Name")[0]