How to use part of the attribute value as a label in ArcGIS Desktop?

Question

I have a data (school.shp) about schools. I have attribute values like:

TABIKA KG SENTOSA, TADIKA BANDAR SEMARIANG, KEMAS KG TABUAN, TABIKA KEMAS SANTUBONG, TADIKA KEMAS SERIAN

I need to label it like below::

TABIKA KG SENTOSA - TABIKA

TADIKA BANDAR SEMARIAN - TADIKA

KEMAS KG TABUAN - KEMAS

TABIKA KEMAS SANTUBONG - TABIKA KEMAS

TADIKA KEMAS SERIAN - TADIKA KEMAS

I just need to label TADIKA, TABIKA, KEMAS, TADIKA KEMAS, TABIKA KEMAS, no need to label the full name. Is there any VB or SQL query that can help me to settle this problem?

Answer 1

Since you have just a couple of cases to cover, you could use the Expression button in the Label Manager and then enter this code in the Label Expression dialog box (click Advanced check-box).

def FindLabel ([SCHOOL_NAME]):
  if 'TADIKA KEMAS SERIAN' in [SCHOOL_NAME]:
    labelText = 'TADIKA KEMAS'
  if 'TABIKA KEMAS SERIAN' in [SCHOOL_NAME]:
    labelText = 'TABIKA KEMAS'
  return labelText

You can add more cases to this expression (where [SCHOOL_NAME] is the field where you store the school name. And by the way, you don't need to use Maplex for that, standard labeling engine can handle label expressions, too (just in case you use Maplex only trying to handle this issue).

Answer 2

just as a complement to Alex Tereshenkov's answer, you need to find the expression that will work for all your school, and this can be done with the python expression below (see here for more details about building label expressions). First you test your complex cases, then you return the first word if the complex cases were not found.

def FindLabel ([SCHOOL_NAME]):
  if 'TADIKA KEMAS' in [SCHOOL_NAME]:
    labelText = 'TADIKA KEMAS'
  elif 'TABIKA KEMAS' in [SCHOOL_NAME]:
    labelText = 'TABIKA KEMAS'
  else:
    oldText = [SCHOOL_NAME]
    labelText = oldText.split(" ")[0]
  return labelText