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What is the best way to join following tables? I have 55 records in the second table and I would like to just "drag and drop" the data to the first one.

Shapefile table Shapefile table Database table Database table

piotrass077
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  • Start editing session, select the features you would like to drag and drop and ctrl&c and ctrl&v. – EikeMike Apr 11 '15 at 15:16
  • I got "Table Window" with text: "The value you have entered is out of range or is not a whole number". – piotrass077 Apr 11 '15 at 15:26
  • Does the DBF belong to a feature class? If so you may be able to export the feature class to shapefile. – Ali Apr 11 '15 at 17:24
  • Unfortunately, no. I've made a file in Excel, added to the project in ArcMap and made another DBF from the main table (and this is "Database table" you can see above). – piotrass077 Apr 11 '15 at 18:52
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    What exactly are you trying to do? No join is possible because you have an empty table so there's nothing to join to. You can get those records into a shapefile, but they will all have null geometries because there is no geometry information in the table you have records for. Is the goal to create the geometries for the attribute records you have? Are there addresses or coordinates in that table? If not, the best thing to do would just be edit your shapefile and create the points, given each a unique ID attribute common to the other table, assuming there is such, and then join on that. – Chris W Apr 11 '15 at 19:20
  • Yes, my goal is to create the geometries for the attribute records I have. Attribute records are basically roads and my job is to draw lines for them on the map (that's why I've made a polyline shapefile table). I would like to just put the data from database table to the shapefile table and connect records with the geometry on the map (clicking the records and drawing the line for it). – piotrass077 Apr 11 '15 at 20:28

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As I mentioned in comments, no join is currently possible because there are no records in one table to join those from the other to.

The simplest, easiest, fastest thing to do is create your line features and enter a unique ID attribute for each record that is found in the table you already have. You can then join your table to the features using that ID field in both tables.

You mention wanting to just copy them over, click a row, and draw the line. ArcGIS doesn't work like that. To pursue this route you would have to:

  1. Create new attribute fields in your shapefile that match the datatypes (and preferably field names, though you can map from one name to another) of your table.

  2. use Append, Load Data, Copy Features, or a similar tool to get the table records loaded into the shapefile. Some of those tools may or may not like the lack of a geometry (shape) column and not successfully complete the operation. You can also copy the attributes from each record in the table, one at a time, and paste them to the last row in the shapefile table (there should be a blank row at the bottom when in an Edit Session). What you will end up with is records with a null geometry.

  3. Selecting each record, you'll need to use the Replace Geometry tool on the Advanced Editing toolbar to create a new geometry to replace the null and then save edits.

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Chris W
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