Exploring and Manipulating Data with Python

This week we really got into coding! The assignment included using python to look at and edit data. We had to write a code that created a new geodatabase, copied files over to it, sort data from a layer, and then print this information out in several ways. 

Here's a look at the script workflow.

Most of the code was pretty easy and straightforward as the exercise covered the basics well. I ran into issues with the search cursors. Creating them was easy enough but getting the data from the attribute table into the desired format was more tricky.

I had issues trying to print the results from the first search. The population is acting as an integer so it did not want to print when I create the code for this. I remembered issues with this situation from Module 2 and looked back at this code to see how I fixed it. I used a command to turn the integer into a string – str(). However, it still took me some playing around to figure out how to put this into the code. I tried it when I assigned the field to my variable pop, and then in several places around the print code before I finally sorted it out – str(row.getValue(pop)). 

Similarly, I created the search cursor for the dictionary easily enough but populating it, on the other hand, gave me trouble! I tried to reuse the search cursor settings but it only returns one city – Carlsbad, which is the last on the list. I finally figured out I needed to change the way that I was writing the code to add the keys and values to the dictionary. While {} creates a dictionary, I could add values in a simpler fashion – county_seats[key] = value. The most foolish part is I realized this was explained in the assignment instructions when I went to read back over them a little more thoroughly.

Overall, I feel like I'm getting the hang of coding and am enjoying the challenge of it.

Here's a look at the results of my code: