Latest Contributions by MatthewLeonard

In ArcGIS Desktop 10.2, I used arcpy code in the Python interpreter to run the arcpy.JoinField_management tool, to join 2 fields from another table.  For no apparent reason, the tool failed with the error "General Function Failure."  But this is the really weird part: Exactly as that happened, I was watching the attribute table of the target feature class which I had open, and I saw all the records vanish!  Suddenly ArcMap was no longer able to draw that layer.  I still see the feature class in the catalog, but I can't add it to a new map, view its properties, or do anything with it now.  When I try to add it to a new map, I get "error opening feature class." This is mind boggling.  I tried closing and restarting ArcMap, but that didn't help.  Anyone know why this would happen or how to get my data back?  I may just have to look for a backup version of the data... ... View more

ArcGIS custom toolbox which uses a python script, for updating a mass amount of field aliases at once, using a list of field names and corresponding aliases input by user. Let’s say you have an ArcGIS feature class or table with a bunch of cryptic, abbreviated field names, and you want to add aliases to make them easier to understand. Let’s say you also have a list of field names and corresponding aliases that you have prepared in Excel or whatever. All you need to do is save that list as a CSV file with the field names in the first column and aliases in the second column. Then run this tool. The only inputs required are the feature class and the CSV file. The script uses the arcpy and csv packages. It first reads the CSV file and parses it into a python list where each item in the list is a list containing a field name and alias value. Then it iterates through that list, running an arcpy command that attempts to update the alias for each field name in the list. As the tool is running, it will display a message for each field that gets an updated alias. If a field name from your list does not exist in the feature class, the tool will display a message telling you that and move on to the next one. It should take just a few seconds per field to run. I ran this tool successfully with ArcGIS Desktop 10.5. I believe it could also be tweaked to work on a shapefile instead of a feature class. It’s really a pretty simple script, and I’m probably not the first person to come up with something like this, but I couldn’t find a solution searching elsewhere. Please let me know or suggest changes if it doesn’t work for you. ... View more