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@cindygis
Last active August 19, 2016 19:48
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Loops over an existing spreadsheet and builds up a definition query to apply to a layer in ArcMap
#
# @author Cindy Williams
# @date 25/06/2013
#
# Loops over an existing spreadsheet with attribute data
# and builds up a definition query to apply to the dataset.
#
# For use in the Python window in ArcMap.
#
from arcpy import da
import arcpy.mapping as MAP
# Input variables
xls = r"C:\Some\Arb\Folder\Data.xlsx\Sheet1$" # Spreadsheet
mxd = MAP.MapDocument("CURRENT") # Current map document
lyr = MAP.ListLayers(mxd)[0] # First layer in the the map
lst_qry = [] # List to hold the query
field_name = "Layer"
# Loops over the spreadsheet using a search cursor.
# Appends each value into the list
with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(xls, field_name) as cursor:
for row in cursor:
defn_qry = """ "{0}" = '{1}' """.format(field_name, row[0])
lst_qry.append(defn_qry)
# Build a string representation of the definition query and apply it to the layer
lyr.definitionQuery = ' OR '.join(lst_qry)
# Refresh ArcMap to see the query applied
arcpy.RefreshActiveView()
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