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Strip numbers from certain fields

Tonyalmeida

I need to strip numbers from certain fields. I have the following but it strips all number from the entire table.

Some of these fields have blanks and nulls.

import arcpy

arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True

table = "C:/temp/EMS_Table"

field = ['Agency', 'fa', 'lz']
for field in [f.name for f in arcpy.Describe(table).fields if f.type == "String"]:&nbsp; 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; exp = "!{0}!.strip('0123456789.- ')"&nbsp; 
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; arcpy.management.CalculateField(table, field, exp.format(field), "PYTHON")‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍<SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

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DanPatterson_Retired

if you look at your replace list, make sure there is a space in it

a = '0123456789.- #'

a0 = list(a)

a0
['0', '1', '2', '3', '4', '5', '6', '7', '8', '9', '.', '-', ' ', '#']

Notice the character before # is a space ' '

JoeBorgione

I like summary tables to find the outliers. A pound sign or dash or some other weird character will jump out in a hurry, and typically the count will be fairly low...

Tonyalmeida

I did try that before i posted but for some reason it's only removing the # from two fields not all three. I just wasn't sure if i was missing something. Does it matter if there is spaces? for example "UK 05# 56CCO. So in this example it needs to be UKCCO.That's the only thing i am seeing that is different.

Tonyalmeida

I am receiving this data and in order for me to make it work for me i have to clean this table up but i get what you are saying.

DanPatterson_Retired

just add # to your strip( '0123456789.- #') list

JoeBorgione

That's thing about naming conventions: they don't mean anything if people won't/don't follow them. Once you get your data cleaned up, then automation works really, really well. You can make yourself crazy trying to automate anomalies only to find another one. And then another.

Sometimes you just have to roll up your sleeves and expect to get your hands dirty...

Tonyalmeida

After running everything looked fine but there seems to be some "#" symbols in those fields as well, For example Uk05#26. I need to remove those as well.

field = ['Agency', 'fa', 'lz']
for f in field:
exp = "!{0}!.strip('0123456789.- ')"
arcpy.management.CalculateField(table, f, exp.format(f), "PYTHON")

JoeBorgione

see edit above....

JoshuaBixby

I grab suggestions from StackOverflow quite a bit, I try to include a link to the original SO thread to include in my GeoNet comment.

DanPatterson_Retired

from this old thread

https://community.esri.com/message/639336-re-how-to-split-variable-length-field-at-first-number-field-calculator?comment…

keep numbers

fld <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">"aaasdfasdfasdf12341asdfadfadsf"</SPAN>

<SPAN class="string token">""</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>join<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN>i <SPAN class="keyword token">for</SPAN> i <SPAN class="keyword token">in</SPAN> fld <SPAN class="keyword token">if</SPAN> i<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>isdigit<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN> <SPAN class="operator token">or</SPAN> i <SPAN class="operator token">==</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">" "</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>strip<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>
<SPAN class="string token">'12341'</SPAN>‍‍‍‍<SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

keep text

<SPAN class="string token">""</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>join<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN>i <SPAN class="keyword token">for</SPAN> i <SPAN class="keyword token">in</SPAN> fld <SPAN class="keyword token">if</SPAN> i<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>isalpha<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN> <SPAN class="operator token">or</SPAN> i <SPAN class="operator token">==</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">" "</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>strip<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>

<SPAN class="string token">'aaasdfasdfasdfasdfadfadsf'</SPAN><SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

line 1 becomes your field calculation and you feed 'fld' into it

for fld in fields:

do stuff with the above in your code

JoeBorgione

I stole this from StackOverflow: python - Removing numbers from string - Stack Overflow

no_digits <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> <SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN>
<SPAN class="comment token"># Iterate through the string, adding non-numbers to the no_digits list</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">for</SPAN> i <SPAN class="keyword token">in</SPAN> s<SPAN class="punctuation token">:</SPAN>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <SPAN class="keyword token">if</SPAN> <SPAN class="operator token">not</SPAN> i<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>isdigit<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">:</SPAN>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; no_digits<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>append<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>i<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>

<SPAN class="comment token"># Now join all elements of the list with '', </SPAN>
<SPAN class="comment token"># which puts all of the characters together.</SPAN>
result <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">''</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>join<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>no_digits<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍<SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

Where s = your field value....

edited- just to add, you could do the inverse, and look for and keep letters....

is_alpha <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">for</SPAN> i <SPAN class="keyword token">in</SPAN> s<SPAN class="punctuation token">:</SPAN>
&nbsp; <SPAN class="keyword token">if</SPAN> i<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>isalpha<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">:</SPAN>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; is_alpha<SPAN class="punctuation token">.</SPAN>append<SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>i<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>‍‍‍‍<SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

Tonyalmeida

I am trying to strip from the number values in those fields. sorry for not making it clear.

i am getting ERROR 000539: Invalid field['Agency', 'fa', 'lz']

</CODE></P><P><CODE><IMG alt="" class="image-1 jive-image j-img-original" src="https://us.v-cdn.net/6038851/uploads/legacyfs/online/426746_EMSTable.png" />

DanPatterson_Retired

I think there is some confusion about whether you are trying to strip stuff from values in a field, or strip the fields (which are weirdly names, hence the suspicion) that you have listed.

If we assume your fields are as listed in line 1 and assuming you are working on a copy and that your calculatefield expression actually works... maybe

field = ['Agency', 'fa', 'lz']
for f in field:
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; exp = "!{0}!.strip('0123456789.- ')"
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; arcpy.management.CalculateField(table, f, exp.format(field), "PYTHON")‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍<SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

Now if those aren't the fields, maybe you might want to show with a screen grab what you are working with

Tonyalmeida

I think for the most part they are just FA25 with no spaces.

Tonyalmeida

yes it's doing all the fields, not really sure how to write it. I am also not sure if this is the best way. would using with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor better?

JoeBorgione

Can you show what the field values look like at present? Is there a pattern of how they are formatted like

FA25 or FA 25 ?

When you follow some sort of naming convention in your field values it's always easier to parse them out when you need to...

DanPatterson_Retired

field gets defined twice, once in line 7 … which are the fields that you want I presume.... but it gets redefined again in line 8 in the 'for field....' section. I suspect that it is not just doing the fields you want but all the fields that are of type 'String'

DarrenWiens2

You are overwriting the list of fields when you create the loop.

Consider:

field <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> <SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN><SPAN class="string token">'Agency'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">'fa'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">'lz'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">for</SPAN> field <SPAN class="keyword token">in</SPAN> <SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN><SPAN class="number token">1</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="number token">2</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="number token">3</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="number token">4</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">:</SPAN>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <SPAN class="keyword token">print</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>field<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>

<SPAN class="number token">1</SPAN>
<SPAN class="number token">2</SPAN>
<SPAN class="number token">3</SPAN>
<SPAN class="number token">4</SPAN><SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

If you know the fields you want to loop through:

fields <SPAN class="operator token">=</SPAN> <SPAN class="punctuation token">[</SPAN><SPAN class="string token">'Agency'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">'fa'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">,</SPAN> <SPAN class="string token">'lz'</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">]</SPAN>
<SPAN class="keyword token">for</SPAN> field <SPAN class="keyword token">in</SPAN> fields<SPAN class="punctuation token">:</SPAN>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; <SPAN class="keyword token">print</SPAN><SPAN class="punctuation token">(</SPAN>field<SPAN class="punctuation token">)</SPAN>

Agency
fa
lz<SPAN class="line-numbers-rows"><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN><SPAN>‍</SPAN></SPAN>

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