I have joined an excel table to a shapefile with multiple registers (more than 200,000) and I???m trying to export it as a new shapefile but it takes more than 4 hours to do it. Does anybody know another way to do it?
I have to repeat the process more that 16 times (using Model Builder) and I need to find a faster way to do it.
Thanks rfairhur24 for an excellent help. Solved my problems in a few minutes after hours of non-successful try with joining large shapefiles, using the join field stuff. Will use GDB and the Join tools from now on.
For Excel use the Table to Table tool to copy it into your new geodatabase, also in the Conversion toolbox and the Geodatabase toolset.
Use the Add Attribute Index tool under the Data Management toolbox in the Indexes toolset on the Join fields in both the new feature class and the table to optimize the join performance.
Use the Make Feature Layer tool on the converted shapefile feature class. Use the Join tool with that layer as the input layer and the geodatabase table as the join source.
Thanks for the detailed info. I have a bit of a different problem and I think this might help. Does this sound like it would work?
I have a file geodatabase feature class joined with an Excel table and set up in data driven pages. When I try to export selected records to pdf it gives an error. The problem has something to do with the join because it works as soon as I remove the join. I want to try your idea of importing the table to geodatabase to see if that fixes it. I don't want to set up the join all over again each time the Excel table is updated. So I think I would work from ArcCatalog to overwrite the join data with the same name without opening the mxd. Sound good? (This is in 10.0.)
Also is there a difference between the add join from the toolbox, and the add join from right-clicking the layer in the TOC?
Thanks for the detailed info. I have a bit of a different problem and I think this might help. Does this sound like it would work?
I have a file geodatabase feature class joined with an Excel table and set up in data driven pages. When I try to export selected records to pdf it gives an error. The problem has something to do with the join because it works as soon as I remove the join. I want to try your idea of importing the table to geodatabase to see if that fixes it. I don't want to set up the join all over again each time the Excel table is updated. So I think I would work from ArcCatalog to overwrite the join data with the same name without opening the mxd. Sound good? (This is in 10.0.)
Also is there a difference between the add join from the toolbox, and the add join from right-clicking the layer in the TOC?
That will work if you create a model to do the update. The Add Join is the same, other than one operates in a model and the other is made visible in desktop. If the model ran while the map was closed and afterward the map was open, it should open everything just fine as long as the data sources and file names had not changed.
That will work if you create a model to do the update. The Add Join is the same, other than one operates in a model and the other is made visible in desktop. If the model ran while the map was closed and afterward the map was open, it should open everything just fine as long as the data sources and file names had not changed.
Just another note. Overwriting files does not work in Python scripts if you decide to schedule this. You have to explicitly delete a file before you can overwrite it. In Model Builder the delete of the existing file becomes a precondition of a file creation tool that would replace it.
