Good catch!
I was just looking at a feature-linked annotation and the annotation layer does not contain any access to the expression. It does contain a field TextString that holds the result of the expression. I thought I could update that with a new content (no change in the expression) like this:
def main():
import arcpy
fc = r'C:\Esri\EAB\NFA\Nighttime Flow Analysis\NighttimeFlowA4W\Maps and GDBs\WaterDistributionNetwork.gdb\WaterDistribution\wMain'
fld_facility = 'FACILITYID'
fld_mat = 'MATERIAL'
fld_diam = 'DIAMETER'
fld_oid = 'OID@'
fc_anno = r'C:\Esri\EAB\NFA\Nighttime Flow Analysis\NighttimeFlowA4W\Maps and GDBs\WaterDistributionNetwork.gdb\WaterDistribution\Water_MainsAnno4'
fld_anno_id = 'FeatureID'
fld_text ='TextString'
flds = (fld_oid, fld_facility, fld_mat, fld_diam)
dct_fc = {r[0]: [r[1], r[2], r[3]] for r in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(fc, flds)}
flds_anno = (fld_anno_id, fld_text)
with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc_anno, flds_anno) as curs:
for row in curs:
feat_id = row[0]
if feat_id in dct_fc:
lst_values = dct_fc[feat_id]
text = '{0}\n{1} - {2}'.format(lst_values[0], lst_values[1], lst_values[2])
curs.updateRow((feat_id, text, ))
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()
The TextString field values do update with the new text, however that new text is not visualized as annotation in the map.
Just wondering. Why does this client want to update the annotation by Python? And is there a reason for not wanting to use labeling instead of annotation?
