Merging shapes within a feature

Question

Hi all,

I have a polygon shapefile with 1800 records. I want to slim this down by merging together records with either:

a) duplicate/matching area sizes in the Area field

or

b) matching first 6 letters of a reference ID field.

So below, the 4 'Armes Court' shapes would combine into one and same with the 'Avon Court' shapes etc etc...

There are too many records to go manually merging them togther.

Thanks.

also, why can't i publish this question in a general 'GIS' location? When I click browse places, all the cateogories are really specific. I've had to choose python as perhaps the solution to my question is python...? who knows...

TheoFaull · Answer

Thanks LukeW‌

Yes I didn't realise there were two different areas for armes court. I guess what I only want, is to dissolve based on the Unique ID field.

I'll create a new text field to transfer the first 6 characters over. Then I'll dissolve.

I always get confused with the 'left' and 'right' in vb scripts. And whether it deletes or keeps the specified characters.

Thanks.

DanPatterson_Retired · Answer

Theo...

Moved to Managing Data‌ data because..

* it isn't GIS specific
* the question is about data formatting and structuring
* the solution is language agnostic or could be solved using one or more languages

The GeoNet Community Structure may help to provide a more categorized perspective.

NeilAyres · Answer

Or if you wanted the python version. Check the python parser radio button first. !QL_PROPID![:6]‍‍