topic Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field in ArcGIS Enterprise Portal Questions

VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

TiaMorita — Mon, 19 May 2014 21:14:02 GMT

I am trying to create labels for a county field name (called "Name") where I drop the last word "county". For example, the Name field has "Los Angeles County" and "Santa Barbara County" and "Ventura County" - but I just want these labels in my map to read: Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, and Ventura. Is there a way to delete the last characters or just drop the whole word County in a script?

Thanks!

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

Zeke — Mon, 19 May 2014 23:10:40 GMT

In python:!Name!.split()[:-1]

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

RaymondHuang — Tue, 20 May 2014 02:43:28 GMT

In vbscript: Left([Name], Len([Name])-6)

Basically this prints anything on the Name field and ignoring the last 6 character, which is dropping off the " county"(note the space character).

Hope it helps!

Cheers,
Raymond

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

TiaMorita — Tue, 20 May 2014 17:00:35 GMT

In python:!Name!.split()[:-1]

Thanks raymondhuang - I unfortunately get an error message saying "No features found. Could not verify expression."

Any ideas? Thanks again.

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

RaymondHuang — Tue, 20 May 2014 17:16:05 GMT

Do you mean the VB Script did not work for some records? Can you check if there are any records that doesn't end with " county" or is empty?

Take a screen shot of your attribute table and your field calculator expression for us if you are still facing issues.

Raymond

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

JoshuaChisholm — Tue, 20 May 2014 17:41:30 GMT

Thanks raymondhuang - I unfortunately get an error message saying "No features found. Could not verify expression."

Any ideas? Thanks again.

Hello Tia and Raymond,

I think you need to use square brackets[] to reference a field in the label expression. Like this:

[Name].split()[:-1]

But even this code won't work because ArcMap will look for a field called "Name" (which exists) and another field called ":-1" (which does not exist).

I would instead use something like this:

[Name].rstrip(" Country")

This code will remove " Country" from the end of the string iff and only if it's actually there. In other words "Los Angeles" goes to "Los Angeles" and "Los Angeles County" goes to "Los Angeles".

Let me know if that works out!

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

TiaMorita — Tue, 20 May 2014 17:53:46 GMT

In vbscript: Left([Name], Len([Name])-6)

Basically this prints anything on the Name field and ignoring the last 6 character, which is dropping off the " county"(note the space character).

Hope it helps!

Cheers,
Raymond

Thanks Raymond - Just looking through the County dataset again, I actually see that not all entries end in the word "County". For example I have record names in the "Name" field as:

Aleutians West Census Area
Anchorage Municipality
Denali Borough
Yakutat City and Borough
East Baton Rouge Parish
Los Angeles County
King and Queen County

Essentially, I would like a python or vbscript where if the name field has "Census Area" or "Municipality" or "Borough" or "City and Borough" or "Parish" or "County" -- those names get dropped from the label.

Possible?

Thanks again for the help!!

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

JoshuaChisholm — Tue, 20 May 2014 18:46:24 GMT

There are a lot of different ways to do this, but I would use this:

[Name].rstrip("Census Area").rstrip("Municipality").rstrip("Borough").rstrip("City and Borough").rstrip("Parish").rstrip("County").rstrip()

The last .rstrip() gets rid of any spaces at the end of the new string.

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

TiaMorita — Tue, 20 May 2014 20:16:38 GMT

There are a lot of different ways to do this, but I would use this:
[Name].rstrip("Census Area").rstrip("Municipality").rstrip("Borough").rstrip("City and Borough").rstrip("Parish").rstrip("County").rstrip()
The last .rstrip() gets rid of any spaces at the end of the new string.

Hi - I wish this was it, but it seems to truncate all my County names. I've attached some sample data to assist and also a jpeg of the result I initially got when I tried the script.

Thanks!

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

Zeke — Tue, 20 May 2014 22:43:33 GMT

Ok. This works on your sample data.

In Field Calculator...

1. Change parser to python
2. Check Show codeblock
3. Paste the code below into Pre-logic script code
4. in the name = box, enter losemunitype(!name!)

def losemunitype( name):     lsttypes = ['County', 'Parish', 'Borough', 'Municipality', 'Census Area', 'City and Borough']     for losetype in lsttypes:         if losetype in name:             return name.replace(losetype, '')     return name

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

JoshuaChisholm — Wed, 21 May 2014 14:27:46 GMT

Hello Tia,

My apologies, .rstrip() isn't exactly what I thought it was. You should probably use Greg's .replace() method.

Good luck!

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

TiaMorita — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 01:34:37 GMT

Ok. This works on your sample data.

In Field Calculator...

1. Change parser to python
2. Check Show codeblock
3. Paste the code below into Pre-logic script code
4. in the name = box, enter losemunitype(!name!)
def losemunitype( name):
    lsttypes = ['County', 'Parish', 'Borough', 'Municipality', 'Census Area', 'City and Borough']
    for losetype in lsttypes:
        if losetype in name:
            return name.replace(losetype, '')
    return name 

AWESOME! Works like a dream! Thanks!!

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

RaymondHuang — Thu, 22 May 2014 01:50:36 GMT

Hi Tia,

Great!! I think you should help to mark the post by Greg as the answer. 🙂

Raymond

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

Zeke — Thu, 22 May 2014 11:35:42 GMT

One caveat to the script: it does what you asked, but if you had any of the words in the list that precede the part you want to retain, it will delete those as well. So 'County of Los Angeles' becomes ' of Los Angeles'. If you want 'County of ' deleted, add that to the list. If you only want 'County' deleted when it's at the end, change this line:

if losetype in name:

to

if name.endswith(losetype):

Re: VB or Python script for County label that drops the last word in a field

JoshuaChisholm — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 01:34:40 GMT

If you only want to remove the suffix strings from the end of the name field, you could modify Greg's script like this:

def losemunitype( name):
    lsttypes = ['County', 'Parish', 'Borough', 'Municipality', 'Census Area', 'City and Borough']
    for losetype in lsttypes:
        if name.endswith(losetype):
            return name[:-len(losetype)].strip()
    return name

[INDENT]The .strip() just gets rid of the space left over at the new end of the string.[/INDENT]

PS. I switch the green check to Greg's original response. I hope that's ok!