Replicating 'Field Delimiter' functionality in ArcMap symbology within ArcGIS Pro 2.4.3

[NathanialStory1]

I need to list "Park Names(string)" within my legend and have them sorted by their "Park Number(int)". I do this in ArcMap 10.5 by going to Properties->Symbology->Unique values, many fields->Place "Park Number" in slot 1 and "Park Name" in slot 2->Advanced->Field Delimiter-> Replace "," with ". "->Ok->Apply

In ArcGIS Pro I can do the same thing, up until designating a new delimiter. I cannot figure out how to switch it from a comma to anything else.

I have tried using Arcade to build a label expression but it casts the entire label as a string, and thus sorts the parks based on number strings.

Worst case scenario I type it all up manually, but I'm hoping there's something I have overlooked.

Thank you

[XanderBakker]

Hi Cherokee_CO_GIS ,

I suppose that formatting the number in Arcade with preceding ceros could be an option, but I don't know if that is something you are willing to accept. But, I also did not find an option to define the delimiter.

Kory Kramer‌; is that coming in 2.5?

[KoryKramer]

Hi Xander - no I don't see this in 2.5.  Custom field delimiter in ArcGIS Pro indicates that their use case was resolved with the Arcade capabilities in Pro.  For this current use case of needing to sort, would it be possible to use the Arcade Sort function to make it work?  (Even if so, writing custom code to achieve this without a UI is an issue.  I'll check with the team on this one...)

[NathanialStory1]

I will look into sorting with Arcade, and start ranging out a little bit more to explore my options.

Thank you for responding so quickly.

[EllenSaxon]

Hi Kory, the link you provided isn't working for me. I am looking to modify the field delimiter from "," to " - ". I am not concerned about modifying the sorting parameters for this one. How can I do this in ArcGIS Pro 2.7?

[CraigWilliams]

Interesting, that's not what the field delimiter was designed for!

Backstory: In ArcMap when creating unique value symbology from many fields, we typically store "<value 1>,<value2>" etc with each value being separated by a comma. This approach worked for many cases, but went horribly wrong when the unique value from a field actually contained a comma. We added analysis code to detect this when generating unique values and would switch the separator to another character. The UI under Advanced was just there to provide an annotation place to edit it.

In ArcGIS Pro, we don't store unique values for the comma delimited case in a single string with a separator. We store an array of values. Therefore, we don't need the delimiter for the above purpose. Obviously you can hand edit the labels for the classes to not be commas, but I can imagine that would be time consuming as you note. It appears the sort is primarily an issue for 1-9 and then things are ok after that, so maybe re-ordering just those won't be too bad. Looks like we have a few things to look into including the sort.

[KoryKramer]

Nathanial Story‌ for the drag-drop functionality, note that in ArcGIS Pro 2.5 (which should be available February 6th) you'll be able to select multiple classes and move them at the same time.  See ArcGIS Pro UI symbology improvement 

Here is the TRICK.  Once you have the classes selected, hold the SHIFT key to drag the multiple classes at the same time.  If you don't hold SHIFT, the picker thinks you just want a single class again.  

Hope this helps.

[RoseF]

We're at 2.9.x now and the ability to change the delimiter is still not an option.

We could use the Arcade expression to change the comma delimiter to an underscore, as we normally do but the issues is the sorting -- the first field we use is a numeric field and we would like to sort per this number. When changing the delimiter, this works fine. However, when we use the Arcade function, it seems to turn the numeric values of 1, 2, 3, 4, into text. So the sorting doesn't happen correctly. (as other users have mentioned in this thread)

While we could add zeros to the beginning of our lower numbers, not only is this an extra step, but our Style files all reference values that DO NOT have the extra zeros.

Has anyone else run into this as an issue? Does Esri have any issue with adding the ability to change the delimiter?

I've attached screenshots of the sorting for the same feature class -- one with symbology based on three fields delimited with commas (sorting correct) and one with symbology based on a Custom Arcade function (sorting incorrectly).

Thanks!

[MikeDahm]

Did you ever find a resolution to this?  We are having the same issue, arcade expression then ruins the sorting of the numeric field being first.

[RoseF]

@MikeDahm Unfortunately, no. However, due to other issues with v3.0.x, we have not upgraded to v3.1.x. We hope to test a a few things in v3.1.x and I will make sure to check to see if this is possible now.

Maybe @KoryKramer has more info?