Transfer Attributes based on proximity

[BartPouteau]

I have two feature classes and I need to transfer an attribute from feature class A to feature class B based on closest proximity.

The two methods I've come up with so far are:
1) Use the attribute transfer tool and do it one at a time
2) Do a spatial join and create a new feature class with all attributes combined

I'd prefer to not have to go through the features one at time since I have thousands of them and I'd also rather not have a whole new feature class created.

Has anyone found a way to do this transfer programaticly without creating a new feature class?

Thanks.
Bart

[MarkEllis]

Unless you have a good match between layers (similar number of features with similar locations), Spatial Join is likely the tool to use.

We were able to use this with point features by running multiple spatial joins - first run for close proximity; second run with a larger search distance; so on as the data needed. Between each run, calculate the attributes for those with matches and flag them to mark both that it is done and the quality of the match. Repeat, but query out those features already done, as necessary.

Our layers were geocoded points matched to inconsistent, inaccurate general locations based on PLSS data. Because many points matched multiple others, running through the batch manually ended up a part of the task. Though this is indeed time consuming, it resulted in a rather accurate layer.