Accessing unique attributes for given field in custom tool

AnthonyCheesman1 — Sat, 18 Oct 2014 03:29:36 GMT

I'm in the process of building a custom process (via Python) and I am thinking about the next step, which is loading it to a toolbox. I need to load it as a tool as I will be distributing it to less confident or entry level users.

It would be really useful for the tool user to be able to access a unique list of attributes for a given field (the same attribute may appear in there many times) and I am wondering about the best way to do this.

I can easily generate a unique list as part of the script, but am unsure whether this would be exposed to the tool before it actually ran.

I did find some information here - Generating a choice list from a field | ArcGIS Blog - but I am not that familiar (or confident) with ModelBuilder, and from my cursory examination of this, it relies on building your tool, then exporting the code, then attaching the code to a tool.

What if I just want to code it straight up - ie skip ModelBuilder?

I'm a little (or a lot) bamboozled with all of this - if anyone could please explain how to do this with a custom tool (and even better, why it needs to be done that way), preferably in 3 syllable words or less, I would be eternally grateful.

Other limitation is that the deployment of the tool needs to be able to run with a basic (ArcView) licence.

Thanks.

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Accessing unique attributes for given field in custom tool