Slope of polyline - Python syntax error 000989

[CamillaRootes]

Hi

I am trying to calculate the % slope of multiple polylines in a shapefile. I am using Arc 10.1 with the basic licence.

When I run my code in the Field Calculator I get a Python syntax error on line 3. I can't see the issue - can someone tell me where I'm going wrong?

My code is:

NB - I am not sure what directions the polylines were digitised in. Hence I don't know if the last point is at the higher elevation or vice versa, which is why I am trying to return the absolute change in z value.

The error read out I am getting when I run the code is:

Thanks in advance!

[DanPatterson_Retired]

in your expression box, it should be !Shape! with the s capitalized.  Also check your indentation, it looks sketchy.  And you need to pass the !Slength field in as well

[CamillaRootes]

I've made changes to the expression box and the indentation. What do you mean about passing the SLength field in?

At the moment I'm still getting the same error, with the syntax issue still on line 3.

Here is the code:

[CamillaRootes]

Just noticed the error on line 4 in the above code. Have corrected it, but it wasn't the cause of the issue.

[DanPatterson_Retired]

GetSlopePerc(!Shape!,!SLength!)

def GetSlopePerc(Shape,Leng)

in ration change !SLength! to Leng

[CamillaRootes]

Hi again. I've only just had the chance to test these changes but the code is still returning an error.

Here is my current code:

This is the error that it is returning:

Thanks for your other point about the straight line slope. On thinking about it I do think that I will need to use the straight line slope. So I will add another field to compute the straight line distance between the first and last points and will substitute this field for SLength.

[CamillaRootes]

I've resolved the NameError and the code is now executing. I have also computed the straight line length of the polylines sucessfully and substituted this field into the code in plac of SLength. This is my current code:

At the moment this is only returning a value of 0. Working through the calculation for a couple of the polylines suggests that I should be getting values other than 0. Do you have any idea why I am only getting 0 values out of this code?

[DanPatterson_Retired]

Your z values are the same.  I would calculate the value of the first and last point using Add Geometry Attributes—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

and you could use the z values from the resultant table

[CamillaRootes]

I've got it working.

Unfortunately my university is tight and will only supply me with Arc 10.1, which doesn't have the Add Geometry Attributes tool. So I used the old fashioned 'Calculate geometry' function to add start and end z values to the attribute table. However, this was returning a z value of 0 for both the start and end points of every polyline.

After a bit of snooping I discovered that the z values for the layer had somehow reset to 0. Presumably during some other processing I'd done previously. So I re-extracted correct z values from a DEM of my study area. This got 'calculate geometry' to return the right z values and meant that my slope codes worked perfectly.

Here is the final code for percentage slope (using straight line length between the start and end points):

And here is the code I used to get slope in degrees from the percentage:

Thanks for all your help!

[DanPatterson_Retired]

On a side note, I hope you are calculating values for straight lines since the formula is incorrect if it isn't.  If you want to calculate the straight line slope between the start and end points, you will also need to calculate the distance between those two points ... not using the shape length, but the actual coordinates.  If they are straight lines... never mind.