topic Re: Sort GP tool — Intended use case for sorting SHAPE field? in Geodatabase Questions

Sort GP tool — Intended use case for sorting SHAPE field?

Bud — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 09:57:01 GMT

ArcGIS Pro 3.2.1

The documentation mentions that the Sort tool can be used to sort the SHAPE field:

Feature classes can be spatially reordered, or sorted. The Shape field must be used as the sort field for spatial sorting. There are a number of spatial sort methods that arrange the features differently based on their location.

What is the intended use case for sorting a SHAPE field?

And what does the tool do? For example, with points, does it sort on Y, then X, as if the X and Y were number fields in the attribute table?

Re: Sort GP tool — Intended use case for sorting SHAPE field?

DanPatterson — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 10:03:42 GMT

The first 4 sorting options allow for directionality options

Upper left : sort from N-S, W-E

Upper right Sort from N-S, E-W

Lower left : sort from S-N, W-E

and Lower right: sort from S-N, E-W

peano reason given, plus the developer could implement it.

Missing options

radial sort from extent centroid

distance sort within the first 4 options

plus others

Re: Sort GP tool — Intended use case for sorting SHAPE field?

ChrisUnderwood — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 10:05:22 GMT

Hello @Bud , does the Help page "How the Sort tool works" answer your What does the tool do question ?

https://pro.arcgis.com/en/pro-app/latest/tool-reference/data-management/how-sort-works.htm

For What is the use case, it also offers "Once sorted spatially, efficiency of spatial or geometric operations is enhanced."