ArcScripts Help

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ArcScripts is a collection of scripts written by ESRI staff and users like you. These scripts are designed to work with ESRI software to extend functionality or automate common tasks.

Search Help

General search guidelines

Your query can contain one or more words or phrases or it can be a query expression using logical operators and modifiers.
By default, words and phrases in the query are stemmed (the search will look for variations of the root) and ranked by the density of search terms in the document.
Searches are not case-sensitive. This means you can use "memory ", "Memory", or "MEMORY" and get the same search results.
Refine your search by selecting a script's programming language and/or primary software it is written for.

Noise words

Many common words submitted in a search are considered noise words and will be removed when the query is parsed. If your search requires these words, enclose them in double quotes.

Submitted Query

open pagewithbrowser
open page "with this browser"

Parsed Query

open AND page AND browser
open AND page AND "with this browser"

Basic search

Type in your query in the search field, click on the "Search" button or hit the return key. By default the search will be performed on all the available sources. For example:

geodatabase

All documents that contain at least one occurrence of "geodatabase" will be found, regardless of case.

highway symbols

All documents that contain at least one occurrence of "highway" AND "symbols" will be found, regardless of case.

Examples

How you formulate your query will have a direct result on the query results. These are some examples and rules that will help you formulate valid query expressions.

Invalid Query

SDE ExportTable update could not be found

Query Engine Interpretation

SDE AND ExportTable AND update AND could NOT be found

Valid Query

SDE ExportTable "update could not be found"

Advanced search techniques

Searches can be expanded to include a single group of words or phrases. For two or more words to be considered a phrase, they must be delimited with double quotes (""). For example:

arcinfo memory

This will find and rank all documents containing either of the terms "arcinfo" or "memory". More emphasis is placed on those documents containing both terms.

"segmentation violation"

This will find and rank all documents containing the phrase "segmentation violation"

Searching with logical operators

You can use Booolean operators to apply logic to your query and pinpoint the exact information of your interest. Operators include: AND, OR, ACRRUE and NOT. If you use Boolean operators in your query, your query will be parsed exactly as you entered it; thus, if you wish to group words you must use double quotes to indicate the grouping.

The AND operator selects documents that contain all of the search elements you specify. For example:

hp750 and postscript

This will find all documents containing both the terms "HP750" and "postscript", regardless of case.

The OR operator selects documents that show evidence of at least one of the search elements. For example:

error or 8

This will find all documents containing at least one of the terms "error" or "8".

The ACCRUE operator is represented by the comma. ACCRUE is also referred to as a "fuzzy OR". ACCRUE finds all documents containing any of the words in the comma delimited list of the search elements. For example:

hp750, arcpress, postscript

This will find all documents that contain hp750 or arcpress or postscript.

You can use the NOT operator to exclude something from a search. For example, to find documents containing the words "server" and "configuration" but not the word "firewall", enter this query:

server AND configuration AND NOT firewall

Searching with wildcards

You can use the wildcard "*" to represent a portion of a search string. Be sure to enclose the search string in double quotes. For example, to find all documents with variations of the word TIN, you could use this search string:

"tin*"

This would return all documents containing words such as TIN, TINARC, TINLATTICE, TINCONTOUR, TINMARKERS, etc..

Stemming search

The Stemming search option looks for the words that have the same stem as the word you entered into the Search Field.

"fancy"

This returns fancy, fancied, and fancies.

Stemming is similar to using the asterisk wildcard at the end of a word (heal*). Notice the search for "fancy" dropped the "y" and found words ending with "ied" and "ies". The * wildcard search uses the exact beginning that you specify, whereas the stemming search determines the root of the word for you.

Upload Help

File uploads to ArcScripts require Netscape Navigator Version 2.x and above or Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 4.x and above. Please note that file uploads will not work on Windows 3.x computers. We strongly recommend you include a README file with your scripts. The README file should contain descriptive text or technical information for the scripts and may include a disclaimer.

Before you upload, please compress and archive your script and related files into a single file. Compression and archive software is available for most computers:

Windows Products such as PKZIP and WinZip can be used to create and use .zip files. You can download an evaluation version of WinZip from www.winzip.com.

UNIX www.info-zip.org provides zip and unzip utilities which are open source/freeware utilities for a many UNIX platforms. Additionally, newer versions of Solaris include zip and unzip utilities.
See your UNIX systems administrator for more information.

Macintosh Products such as StuffIt! can be used to create .sit or .sea files (.sea preferred). A variety of Macintosh specific compression and archival software is available at www.eskimo.com/~pristine/compen.html.

ESRI cannot offer technical support on the use of compression or archival software.

Scripts uploaded during the day will be available in the latest scripts section immediately, but they will not be searchable until the next day as the reindexing runs at night.

Prohibited Extensions

For security and administrative reasons, we do not allow executable files, or any files without an extension, to be directly uploaded to our server. Executable files need to be zipped before uploading. Executable files include all files with the following extensions: .exe .vbs .bat .com .wsh .asp .cfm

Download Help

To download scripts, use the search tool to locate the script you want. When you've found the script or scripts, click on the script name. You will be prompted to save the file to your local disk after accepting the agreement.

Please be sure to read any README file provided before using the scripts. ESRI assumes no responsibility for any of the scripts downloaded from this site.

Most scripts are compressed before being uploaded to our server and you will need a decompression utility to use the script.

Windows Products such as PKZIP and WinZip can be used to create and use .zip files. You can download an evaluation version of WinZip from www.winzip.com.

ESRI cannot offer technical support on the use of compression or archival software.

Contact Us

If you have additional questions about script uploads or other script issues, please contact us.