topic Which Calculate Field expression_type should be used? in Geoprocessing Questions

Which Calculate Field expression_type should be used?

curtvprice — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:46:00 GMT

I discovered today that VB syntax is not working in the x64 processor when I run Calculate Field. I get this error

Executing: CalculateField lyr XXVAL 1 VB #
Failed to execute. Parameters are not valid.
ERROR 000989: Tool CalculateField cannot use VB expressions for service

So, it looks like if I want my tools to run in x64 arcpy, I must avoid the default VB parser.

Does anyone know which is better to use: the "PYTHON" or "PYTHON_9.3" parser? I'm wondering if there is any performance or compatibility benefit for using "PYTHON" if you don't need to access shape properties. I would think PYTHON_9.3 would be more efficient as it returns objects instead of string representations.

I'm hoping someone on the geoprocessing team can give us advice so we can write CalculateValue expressions in a way that will be the most efficient and forward-compatible...

Re: Which Calculate Field expression_type should be used?

DaleHoneycutt — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 17:03:50 GMT

Curtis:
PYTHON_9.3 is the way to go. The "9.3" python processor returns lists instead of enumerators, and numerous other benefits over the 9.2 processor (I'll ask around and see if I can get a list of these 'other' benefits, but we are going to have to step into the way-back machine and rummage around thru the muck). I don't have any performance numbers, but the 9.3 parser will be faster. Personally, I wish that the PYTHON_9.3 was the default parser for Calculate Field and Calculate Value, but deeply knotted technical issues prevented us from doing that at 10.0 (I think it might be possible now).

Re: Which Calculate Field expression_type should be used?

curtvprice — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 21:06:45 GMT

Thanks, Dale -- appreciate the guidance.

If you do plan to change the default, please recommend that the online help for Calculate Field starts to warn us now! 🙂