topic Re: Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric. in Geoprocessing Questions

Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric.

OlivierOlivier — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 16:44:44 GMT

Hi,

Using Merge with Modelbuilder (ArcEditor 9.3.1), I encounter a problem as one of the field of a shapefile is composed as numbers and underscore like 12_234. This generates processing message like "ERROR 000596: Feature 2: NAME is non-numeric."

I get the same result when field is empty.

When I open shp with Arccatalog, name is a text field. Does that mean that Merge treats any field beginning with a number as a number and bugs if a non numeric character happens after ?

Those files cames from export of other GIS, which perhaps would be an explanation.

Which workaround could be suggested ?

Thanks very much

Olivier

PS : Found a "solution" => Insert "copy feature" before merge. The problem now is that I already encountered a known problem when Add field follows Copy, strange results appears
http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=93&f=988&t=146998
And of course, I have to use Add field...

Re: Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric.

OlivierOlivier — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 08:51:22 GMT

up, no answer ?

I get this message even if no number, no underscore, only A-Z uppercases.
I tried to add ' sign before all values with field calculator, no change.
The files are generated by an autocad export, could that be the problem ?

Re: Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric.

bradcraddick — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 00:10:48 GMT

This post really helped me with my merge issue in modelbuilder and I also had the same problem with the add field . Since theres a known problem about adding a field after copy then i would just add the field to an existing attribute table with same object id or similar fid and do a join or something like that. you still get the same error message after using copy features?

Re: Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric.

OlivierOlivier — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:57:28 GMT

I'm very happy that this post helped.

I found that it's possible also to use "Make feature layer" instead of "copy", which avoid external file. I will but didn't had time so far to test "add field" after, so if you have let's know ! ;-))

Olivier

Re: Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric.

bradenmiller — Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:26:23 GMT

I get this error using either the Append or Merge tool. The input layers that I'm using have identical fields and their extents are similar. The field that's returning the error is the 'shape_area' field, which has to be a double, so I'm not really sure why I'm getting the error 00596.

Seems like there are a lot of postings regarding similar errors, but few resolutions. I'm assuming it's a bug w the tool?

9.3.1 ArcInfo

Re: Merge/ERROR 000596: Feature is non-numeric.

JosephPehoski — Sun, 10 Nov 2013 15:16:52 GMT

I was having the same problem with this. I was able to solve it by going into the attribute table for each polygon shapefile I was trying to merge, and selecting "Turn All Fields On".