topic Re: Deleting Empty Fields in ArcGIS API for Python Questions

Deleting Empty Fields

MichaelLorenz — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 08:34:00 GMT

I am trying to find the empty fields in a feature class and delete the fields.i am checking the number of empty or null rows are equal to total number of rows then i am deleting the field.i don't want to go throw all the rows and check field is empty or null.but many fields has spaces in the records i want to trim the spaces in string fields. i could not fingure it how to add trim function in SearchCursor where_clause or in sql_clause. could you please let me know how to do it.

result = arcpy.GetCount_management(layer)

totalRows = result[0]

if field.type == 'Double':

query = '("{0}" is null OR "{0}" = 0)'.format(field.name)

else:

query = '("{0}" is null or "{0}"=\'\')'.format(field.name) # query = '("{0}" is null or Trim("{0}")=\'\')'.format(field.name)

rows = [row for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(layer, [field.name], query)]

if int(totalRows) <= len(rows):

arcpy.DeleteField_management(layer, [field.name])

Re: Deleting Empty Fields

DanPatterson_Retired — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 10:39:05 GMT

did that code throw an error? python uses strip() to remove whitespace

a = " a "

a.strip()

'a'‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Deleting Empty Fields

JoshuaBixby — Wed, 24 Apr 2019 14:38:29 GMT

What back-end DBMS/datastore holds your data? The support of TRIM and other SQL functions is DBMS/datastore specific. For example, trying to use TRIM in a WHERE clause with file geodatabases will generate a Python RuntimeError due to invalid expression.