Using a point shape in one shapefile to select a a polygon feature in another shapefile

[EricCompas]

Hello all,

I am working on a project that requires me to experiment with using a shapefile, that is featured as point data, to select objects in another shapefile, that is featured as polygon data. The overall goal is to select a particular point, which highlights data that correlates with that point in another shapefile. I don't know whether this can be done in arcmap, or after the map is published or if i need to run a python script, or something. Any thoughts on this project is appreciated.

[JoeBorgione]

Select your point either by attribute or manually; then use select by location for the polygon that encompasses the selected point.  Another direction would be to perform a spatial join with your points and polygons; the resulting point features would then have the polygon attributes accordingly.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Eric,

If you need the data from the polygon shapefile to show up in the attribute table of the point shapefile based on where a point intersects spatially with a polygon I would suggest a spatial join. Right click the shapefile in the table for contents and choose joins, then in the join data dialog box change the "What do you want to join to this layer" drop down to "Join data from another layer based on spatial location. Choose the layer to join to the points layer and more options will be generated.

Joins are stored in memory of the MXD and are not made permanent until you export the data to a new output. Right click the layer > data > export data.

[JoeBorgione]

...Joins are stored in memory of the MXD...

Is that something new?  I'm on 10.0 and any spatial join results in a new feature class

[Anonymous User]

Joe, I apologize I misspoke...you are correct spatial joins create a new output. It is table joins that are stored in memory of the MXD and require export.

Thanks!

[JoeBorgione]

No problem Katie.  I was hoping maybe this had (finally) been enhanced!