Copying Values to a New Field
Credits: L. Meisterlin with Moses Levich, Thiago Lee, and Erik Strand (2021)
Included in this tutorial
Replicating (copying) values from one attribute field to another, when calculating fields.
Software version in examples: ArcGIS Pro 2.8.2
Tutorial Data: The tutorial includes demonstration with sample data available here.
First, access the Calculate Field dialogue box or tool. Then, specify the table, field, and data type.
TIP! The data type of the new field does not need to match the data type of the field with values to be copied.
To copy values from a field into a new empty field, scroll through the Fields list and double-click the name of the field containing the desired values.
This example (below) demonstrates copying values from the Type_AB field to the empty field called NewText, within the attribute table of the Tracts_wTable layer. To do this, we…
Choose Tracts_wTable under Input Table for this example.
Choose the field to be (re-)calculated. In this example we are calculating values in a field called NewText.
For the Expression Type, ensure Python 3 is selected.
Scroll down the Fields list and double-click the field with values to replicate (in our example: Type_AB), which will add the field to the Expression text box.
The chosen field name (within exclamation marks) should appear in the Expression text box. Thus, in our example, the new field will be calculated with values from the Type_AB field.
TIP: If you are not using the pre-populated list of fields in the dialogue box to build your Python expressions in ArcGIS Pro, remember that fields referenced in an expression must be surrounded by exclamation marks.
copying values from an existing field into a new field