topic 'An expected field was not found or could not be retrieved properly' for arcpy.da.SearchCursor where clause in Python Questions

'An expected field was not found or could not be retrieved properly' for arcpy.da.SearchCursor where clause

TessOldemeyer — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 06:19:13 GMT

I am trying to add a where clause into a arcpy.da.SearchCursor statement, and I keep receiving a 'An expected Field was not found or could not be retrieved properly' error with this code:

where_expression = ' "FIELD2" = "CODE1" or "FIELD2" = "CODE2" '
search_feats = {f[0]:f[1] for f in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(table,["FIELD1","FIELD2","FIELD3"], where_expression)}‍‍

with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(New_Table,["NT_FIELD_1","NT_FIELD_3"]) as upd_cur:
     for upd_row in upd_cur:
         upd_row[1] = search_feats.get(upd_row[0], 0)
         upd_cur.updateRow(upd_row)  

del upd_cur‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

I believe this error is falling on the where clause, as if I exclude the clause from search_feats, the code runs without error. I have used a where clause successfully in this structure in the past, but not with a text field such as FIELD2 here.

Any tips or suggestions would be much appreciated. I have tried many different variations of syntax with no luck yet.

I have verified that the fields exist in the table, have been typed correctly, and do not have any locks.

Re: 'An expected field was not found or could not be retrieved properly' for arcpy.da.SearchCursor where clause

RandyBurton — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 01:05:09 GMT

Try:

where_expression = " FIELD2 = 'CODE1' or FIELD2 = 'CODE2' "‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

Field names in a where clause are usually not in quotes. And with file geodatabase, use outside double quotes; inside text field values in single quotes.

Re: 'An expected field was not found or could not be retrieved properly' for arcpy.da.SearchCursor where clause

TessOldemeyer — Wed, 24 Jan 2018 15:50:33 GMT

That was the ticket! Thank you so much!

Re: 'An expected field was not found or could not be retrieved properly' for arcpy.da.SearchCursor where clause

gisstaffnapacounty — Fri, 31 May 2019 22:54:45 GMT

I also ran into a problem similar with a different root cause. The following was returning An expected Field was not found or could not be retrieved properly. [Closure_Segment].

I found that my segId was unintentionally the value of None. Once a proper value was included no more problems.

where = "OBJECTID={}".format(segId)
cursor = arcpy.da.SearchCursor("Closure_Segment", ["OBJECTID","SHAPE@"], where_clause=where)
for row in cursor:
shp = row[1]