topic Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names. in State & Local Government Questions

Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 15:55:27 GMT

Why does the attribute name fields change after performing an intersect?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

JoeBorgione — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:06:39 GMT

Can you provide an example? What version ArcGIS are you using?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:11:28 GMT

I am using 10.3.

Attribute table BEFORE intersect:

Attribute table AFTER intersect:

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

JoeBorgione — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:25:55 GMT

I'm using 10.0; it adds a few fields but leaves the originals intact. Sorry, can't comment on 10.3; you may have discovered an undocumented feature, aka bug....

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:29:47 GMT

It's weird. This particular intersection has changed the name of the original fields altogether. Thanks for your time.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

MitchHolley1 — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 16:54:10 GMT

Try unslecting 'ALL' from the 'JoinAttributes' field in the 'Interset' tool window. Instead, select 'ONLY_FID'.

Are you sure it is replacing the fields and not just inserting and pushing the original fields to the right?

Let me know what happens.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:08:40 GMT

Thanks Mitch Muskchamp, but selecting 'ONLY FID', deleted all the data in the attribute table.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

MitchHolley1 — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:11:45 GMT

Could you zip the two files you're attempting to run this 'Intersect' process on and post them here?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:20:33 GMT

Oh how I wish I could; unfortunately this data has privileged information.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

MitchHolley1 — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:33:45 GMT

Again, are you sure the new fields aren't just added fields? And they're just pushing over the older fields to the right?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 17:36:53 GMT

the files had the same field names, you can have this since you don't want to overwrite existing data, hence the field name change based upon a minimal intrusion name outcome

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:23:26 GMT

I'm sure. It appears the new name is of a subset of the original name that was created after I geocoded the original file. I'm sure I just confused you there.

Synopsis: I geocoded some data, then called the layer "geocoded results" (attribute table not disturbed) then I performed the intersect. This is when the attribute field names changed automatically to "geocodi_XX (1-100)". The reason this is a problem for me...is because I am going to convert this file into an excel table and provide the data to a customer. This is a rather large dataset; encompassing over 5000 records and not a simple task of manually changing the names back. I think I may have to re-invent the wheel and perform the process all over. Thanks for your help.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

MitchHolley1 — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:39:20 GMT

Have you tried finding ways around this? Like using 'Select by Location' or 'Select by Attributes'?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

JoeBorgione — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 18:56:47 GMT

What type of output are you writing to? A shapefile? File Geodatabase Feature Class?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:06:09 GMT

shape file

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

ToyaShannon — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:06:43 GMT

I have not.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

JoeBorgione — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 19:31:41 GMT

Uggh. The demise of modern civilization. Try it to a file geodatabase feature class and see what happens.

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

VinceAngelo — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 20:24:51 GMT

That's your problem right there. Shapefiles have limits on field name width, which are generally dealt with by making aliases in metadata and naming the columns to sequential names that don't conflict.

Do your analysis in FGDB then rename the columns on export to shapefile when you're done.

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Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

DanPatterson_Retired — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:02:32 GMT

or use far better naming conventions for shapefiles in the first place right Vince?

Re: Intersect tool; automatically changes the field names.

VinceAngelo — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 21:19:34 GMT

That's difficult, because there aren't any good naming conventions that merge source name and field with an underscore in ten characters. It's all part of why shapefiles should be avoided (naming limits, lack of wide strings, BLOBs, CLOBs, and numeric nulls, limited date representation, 2Gb file limit...)

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