topic Re: Calculate Field help in 911 GIS Questions

Calculate Field help

JB — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 17:46:52 GMT

I was working with a shape file that contained a lot of data when I went to calculate a field and for some reason it took out all the data and left me when only that calculated field which is has never done to me before. Is there a way to reverse the calculate field so I can see all my old data? thank you in advance for your help!

Re: Calculate Field help

DarrenWiens2 — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 17:48:39 GMT

Do you mean it calculated all the records in the calculated field to NULL, or did it remove all the fields outside the calculated field, or something else?

Re: Calculate Field help

JoeBorgione — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 17:59:30 GMT

Is there a way to reverse the calculate field so I can see all my old data? thank you in advance for your help!

Ouch... Two things for next time:

When calculating large numbers of rows, start an edit session. If things go south, just close without saving edits

Backup your data. If your data is on a network drive, buddy up to the IT guys (beer, candy bars, etc) and see if they can restore what you have lost.

Re: Calculate Field help

JB — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 12:27:45 GMT

Sorry about that. It removed all fields that were outside of the calculated field.

Re: Calculate Field help

TimWitt2 — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 13:18:44 GMT

Joe pretty much summed it up. If you could mark his answer as correct, that would be great!

Re: Calculate Field help

ChrisSmith7 — Wed, 04 Nov 2015 19:16:24 GMT

Also, in the event that your data are priceless (assuming it's not backed-up by your IT dept.), you could try, as a last resort, restoring from a previous version:

Recover lost or deleted files

You may want to check your scratch workspace as well for any intermediary files in processing that could have salvageable data. And, as a super last resort for priceless data, you could try forensic data recovery, assuming you haven't overwritten the sectors on the hard drive.