Scriptable way to merge polylines that join in ArcGIS

Question

I have a number of polylines (around 9000), a number of which have one or both ends touching another polyline. I would like to merge these ones together into one polyline - thus reducing the number of polylines and ensuring that each line represents one real-world object (rather than having multiple lines per object).

I cannot find a scriptable (preferably through a Python script) way to do this. Is this possible? It would seem to me like a fairly common operation to want to do, but I can't seem to find a built-in function.

Answer 1

Try the Dissolve tool with the UNSPLIT_LINES option.

Answer 2

Haven't tested it but should work nonetheless.

IFeature polyline, polyline2;
ITopologicalOperator op = polyline.Shape as ITopologicalOperator;
polyline.Shape = op.Union(polyline2);

See AO-API.

Answer 3

if your ArcGIS comes with Data Interoperability extention, LineJoiner transformer is able to do your task. BTW, Data Interoperability is built from FME, you can see how that transformer works here: http://www.fmepedia.com/index.php/LineJoiner

Answer 4

I found that the basic dissolve tool works much better than the multipart-->singlepart then unsplit lines approach.