Using Merge with Modelbuilder (ArcEditor 9.3.1), I encounter a problem as one of the field of a shapefile is composed as numbers and underscore like 12_234. This generates processing message like "ERROR 000596: Feature 2: NAME is non-numeric."
I get the same result when field is empty.
When I open shp with Arccatalog, name is a text field. Does that mean that Merge treats any field beginning with a number as a number and bugs if a non numeric character happens after ?
Those files cames from export of other GIS, which perhaps would be an explanation.
Which workaround could be suggested ?
Thanks very much
Olivier
PS : Found a "solution" => Insert "copy feature" before merge. The problem now is that I already encountered a known problem when Add field follows Copy, strange results appears http://forums.esri.com/Thread.asp?c=93&f=988&t=146998 And of course, I have to use Add field...
I get this message even if no number, no underscore, only A-Z uppercases. I tried to add ' sign before all values with field calculator, no change. The files are generated by an autocad export, could that be the problem ?
This post really helped me with my merge issue in modelbuilder and I also had the same problem with the add field . Since theres a known problem about adding a field after copy then i would just add the field to an existing attribute table with same object id or similar fid and do a join or something like that. you still get the same error message after using copy features?
I found that it's possible also to use "Make feature layer" instead of "copy", which avoid external file. I will but didn't had time so far to test "add field" after, so if you have let's know ! ;-))
I get this error using either the Append or Merge tool. The input layers that I'm using have identical fields and their extents are similar. The field that's returning the error is the 'shape_area' field, which has to be a double, so I'm not really sure why I'm getting the error 00596.
Seems like there are a lot of postings regarding similar errors, but few resolutions. I'm assuming it's a bug w the tool?
I was having the same problem with this. I was able to solve it by going into the attribute table for each polygon shapefile I was trying to merge, and selecting "Turn All Fields On".
