topic Re: Make SearchCursor from Excel table? in Python Questions

Make SearchCursor from Excel table?

RobertMartin2 — Mon, 01 Oct 2012 22:08:15 GMT

Hi all,

I am having a heck of a time making a SearchCursor from an Excel table with a WHERE query. I made a test table with just one column called NAME and a cursor as follows:

where = '\"NAME\" = \'Tom\'' rows = arcpy.SearchCursor("Sheet1$", where)

This works fine. But when I loop over the rows and print NAME nothing happens (I'm guessing no rows satisfy the query, though the data is there). Conversely if I change the statement to:

where = '\"NAME\" <> \'Tom\''

it returns ALL rows. Obviously the WHERE clause is not working, but it looks fine to me and I don't get any syntax errors. Can anyone think of what might be happening here? Maybe an Excel peculiarity?

Thanks!

Re: Make SearchCursor from Excel table?

JakeSkinner — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:49:24 GMT

Hi Robert,

Try changing your where clause to:

where = "NAME = 'Tom'"

Re: Make SearchCursor from Excel table?

RobertMartin2 — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:16:49 GMT

Thanks Jake, that did the trick for that table. The only issue is that my actual data has spaces in the column names, so I think I need the quotes. Any thoughts on how to incorporate those?

I tried something like

where = "\"FIRST NAME\" = 'Tom'"

and the cursor generated fine, but with no rows.

Re: Make SearchCursor from Excel table?

JakeSkinner — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 18:53:03 GMT

Try placing the field name in brackets. Ex:

where = "[First Name] = 'Tom'"