Retrieving first value in list

Question

I'm trying to extract the first value from a list. I'm using [0] but it seems to be returning all the values regardless. Am I overlooking something?

env.workspace = r"someSDEconnection.sde"

addModDate_featureList = arcpy.ListFeatureClasses("GEO*")
for addModDate_feature in addModDate_featureList:
    fc_result = arcpy.GetCount_management(addModDate_feature)
    fc_count = int(fc_result.getOutput(0))
    if fc_count == 0:
       print(addModDate_feature + " No Geometry Present")
    else:
       addModDate_field_names = [f.name for f in arcpy.ListFields(addModDate_feature)]
       if "MOD_DATE" in addModDate_field_names:
       unique_addDate = set(row[0] for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(addModDate_feature, "MOD_DATE"))
       outList = []
       for element in unique_addDate:
          if element is None:
             pass
          elif element is not None and element not in outList:
             outList.append(element)
             outList.sort(reverse=True)
             outList_recent = outList[0]
             print(addModDate_feature + " " + outList_recent)

else:
               print(addModDate_feature + " No Date")

rzufelt · Answer

This one I still use the old cursors as it is so simple. myField = "recnum" maxValue = arcpy.SearchCursor(infc, "", "", "", "recnum D").next().getValue(myField) #Get 1st row in descending cursor sort ‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ Only loading one field into the searchcursor, and in this case, it is numeric, so if I grab the first value, is the max, change the sort to "A" and would be the min. In any case, it grabs the first value in the list. R_

MikeEdwards · Answer

env.workspace = r"someSDEconnection.sde" addModDate_featureList = arcpy.ListFeatureClasses("GEODBA*") for addModDate_feature in addModDate_featureList: fc_result = arcpy.GetCount_management(addModDate_feature) fc_count = int(fc_result.getOutput(0)) if fc_count == 0: print(addModDate_feature + " No Geometry Present") else: addModDate_field_names = [f.name for f in arcpy.ListFields(addModDate_feature)] if "MOD_DATE" in addModDate_field_names: unique_addDate = set(row[0] for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(addModDate_feature, ["MOD_DATE"])) outList = [] for element in unique_addDate: if element is None: pass elif element not in outList: outList.append(element) outList.sort(reverse=True) else: pass if len(outList) == 0: pass else: outList_recent = outList[0] print(addModDate_feature + " " + str(outList_recent))‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍ If I test for the Lists with no values it seems to work fine.

bixb0012 · Answer

If one is only passing a single field to a cursor, it doesn't have to be a list.  That said, passing a list regardless of the number of fields is a more consistent approach than a string for a single field and list for multiple fields.