topic Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder in ModelBuilder Questions

Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 15:43:50 GMT

I am trying to use Select by Attributes within model builder. The input layer is a feature layer that is created.

My model fails on the Select By Attribute step with an error message saying that the specified field can not be found. This is the field that I have specified in the input layer.

Anyone know why this is?

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

DanPatterson_Retired — Thu, 12 Apr 2018 17:50:58 GMT

The field you refer to... where is it and what is its name? Is it the actual field name or an alias.

Perhaps the whole error message would help

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 08:56:26 GMT

Here is the error message:

Start Time: Fri Apr 13 09:35:03 2018
ERROR 000358: Invalid expression
An expected Field was not found or could not be retrieved properly. ExcelToTable12_Features.Townlands]
Item not found in this collection.
Failed to execute (Select Layer By Attribute).
Failed at Fri Apr 13 09:35:03 2018 (Elapsed Time: 0.01 seconds)

Townlands is the field name within the feature layer

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

XanderBakker — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:12:30 GMT

Is there a join involved in the process?

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:23:04 GMT

There is a join involved and I suspect that is the problem. The field I am querying "townlands" is from another table from a join.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

DanPatterson_Retired — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 11:42:51 GMT

Save the joined file to a new one as part of the process first... you can always delete at the end

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:17:42 GMT

I converted the feature kayer to an excel spreadsheet and then converted the excel spreadsheet to a .dbf. I can do a select on the .dbf and get the record im querying for.

Is there a simpler way to do this?

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

XanderBakker — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:20:12 GMT

If the idea is to select by attributes, you can do this directly on the feature layer. No need to export to Excel and export from Excel to dbf.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:24:28 GMT

Yes but the Select By Attributes is throwing the above error message if I do it on the feature layer.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

XanderBakker — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:29:00 GMT

Can you share a screenshot of your model?

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:37:13 GMT

Why...I sent the error message

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

XanderBakker — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:48:41 GMT

Knowing how things are connected and understanding how things are connected helps understanding what is happening and could be causing the error. Guessing what might be the problem will not be very effective in order to solve the problem.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 12:57:30 GMT

I am attempting to carry out the Select by Attributes on Layer(2) but I get the error message above.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

XanderBakker — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 13:40:43 GMT

I don't see any parameters defined, so I guess that the names are kinda "hard coded" in the model which should not cause the field "ExcelToTable12_Features.Townlands" not te be found in the select by attributes. In case you want to have a physical result, without the temporal join you could use Join Field—Help | ArcGIS Desktop instead (in case the join is by attributes) or use Feature Class to Feature Class—Help | ArcGIS Desktop after the join to create a new featureclass with the additional fields.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

curtvprice — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 16:26:38 GMT

Add Join can be a challenge in Model Builder because you need to explicitly remove the join before you run it again or it gets confused.

I'm with Xander, I'd simplify things by copying the output of select layer by location with Copy Features to a temp dataset (in in_memory if not too big) and use Join Field to add the data directly from the output from Excel To Table. Oh, and I'd run Excel To Table to a geodatabase temp table instead of a dbf. (No need to make an XY event layer if you are just going to add the fields to another table which already has locations.)

Joins work better when both tables have an ObjectID field, external data sources like .xlsx and .dbf do not have objectID fields, so joins won't have as much functionality (and run slower). Best to import the data to Esri world (in_memory, temp geodatabase table) before doing joins, so you get the benefit of the OID field.

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

JohnMcConalogue — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 10:27:20 GMT

How would I import into a temp geo-database before querying the tables?

Re: Using Select By Attributes in Model Builder

XanderBakker — Mon, 16 Apr 2018 12:42:58 GMT

One of the options as Curtis Price suggests is using the Copy Features—Help | ArcGIS Desktop tool. As for the output you can use "IN_MEMORY" as output workspace and ArcGIS will know that it needs to create the output in memory. See also Using in-memory workspace—Help | ArcGIS Desktop