Dissolve without creating a new Feature Class

[DanielAbera]

Hi Guys,

I just wonder if there is a tool or script which can do a dissolve based on field values for the input Feature Class without creating a new Feature Class.I know Dissolve tool does the job but creates a new Feature Class.

Any idea ?
Thanks in advance.

Dan

[T__WayneWhitley]

Interesting problem, would it be better for you if you used the Dissolve output, renaming it to replace your orig fc?  Or is it not permitted for you to delete the 'old' fc?  I realize sometimes it is not conducive to simply 'remove and replace' the entire fc for a variety of reasons.  Also, what kind of solution are you looking for?--- a model, python scripting, VBA, etc.?

Technically, you could 'merge' or combine geometries within the same fc (not deleting the fc), using care to preserve the attributes in the row object and reloading the 'merged geometry' - using part of the methods listed here:

Using geometry objects with geoprocessing tools
Resource Center » Professional Library » Geoprocessing » Geoprocessing with Python » Accessing geographic data in Python
http://help.arcgis.com/en/arcgisdesktop/10.0/help/index.html#/Using_geometry_objects_with_geoprocess...

...if you're at 10.1, there's more documentation concerning, for example, geometry methods (particularly 'union') with the polygon class:
Polygon (arcpy)
Desktop » Geoprocessing » ArcPy » ArcPy classeshttp://resources.arcgis.com/en/help/main/10.1/index.html#//018z00000061000000

[DanielAbera · Accepted solution]

Hi Wayne,

Thanks for the reply. I was planning to use it as part of a model I built. I had other geoprocessing tasks on the same input FC, so I just wanted to use the same input FC for the dissolve operation. Anyway, I did some work around to used my original input FC as temp Fc and used the dissolve output as my new inputFc for the other operation, and it seems working. I will try the suggested methods to see how they work. Thanks again !!

Dan