topic Re: Using " instead of inches in a field in Python Questions

Using " instead of inches in a field

JimNoble — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:41:54 GMT

Hi guys, I am trying to calculate a field to read 2" HDPE in every row

#Calculate field Conduit feature class Underground
arcpy.CalculateField_management("Underground.dbf", "Conduit",
                                '"2in HDPE"', "PYTHON3")

With this I can get every row to read 2in HDPE but everytime I try to insert " instead of in I get an error. Could you guys help me please!

Thanks!

-Jim Noble

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

GeoJosh — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:41:56 GMT

Jim,

Try this:

arcpy.CalculateField_management("Underground.dbf", "Conduit",
                                '"2\" HDPE"', "PYTHON3")‍‍‍‍

You need a forward back slash (\) before the parentheses ("). Otherwise, the Python interpreter will think you are trying to close the string.

Best,

Josh

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JoshuaBixby — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 21:08:31 GMT

Forward slash? I think "\" is commonly called backslash.

Even with escaping the double quotes, the string still needs to be single quoted and not double quoted.

"'2\" HDPE'"‍

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JoeBorgione — Fri, 24 Jan 2020 21:16:08 GMT

Just got back from an ESRI user seminar: at pro 2.5 there finally is Find and Replace functionality!

Personally, I shy away from any special characters in database field values; notice how you need to escape them to get them in there. 'nuff said.....

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

DanPatterson_Retired — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:41:59 GMT

not quite the same... but "unicode" is quite a large world to fully explore.

dq = u"\u201D"

f"quoting{dq}"

'quoting”'

"quoting{}".format(dq)

'quoting”'‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JoeBorgione — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:42:02 GMT

s = '12in pipe'
s = s.replace('in','\"')‍‍

print(s)
12" pipe‍‍‍‍‍

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JimNoble — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 02:32:58 GMT

Thanks Joshua, your fix worked perfectly.

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JimNoble — Sun, 12 Dec 2021 00:42:05 GMT

Hi Joe, while your fix didn't pop any errors, it didn't actually fix the problem. Maybe I was using it wrong. This is what I put in.

#Calculate field Conduit feature class Underground

arcpy.CalculateField_management("Underground.dbf", "Conduit",
                                '"2in HDPE"', "PYTHON3")

#Set in name replace with quotation

s = '2in HDPE'
s = s.replace('in','\"')

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JoshuaBixby — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 14:00:07 GMT

Jim, using Joe's code didn't change anything because you ran it after Calculate Field. The way the code is written now, you are using Calculate Field to update a table and then changing a string within Python but that change is never making it back into a data set.

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JimNoble — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 14:16:49 GMT

I see. Thanks for the explanation!

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JoeBorgione — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 15:25:43 GMT

I offered that just as another example. If you plug it into a field calculator replacing s with !YourFieldName! It ought to work. Python offers many ways to skin a cat...

Re: Using " instead of inches in a field

JimNoble — Sat, 25 Jan 2020 15:45:41 GMT

Thanks Joe!