Copying an attribute field from a polygon to a polyline

Question

Is there a GP tool in ArcGIS Pro to copy a date field from a polygon feature class to a polyline feature class? I cannot use the join tool because there are no common fields after running the polygon to line GP tool and it looks like the transfer attributes tool only allows for polyline source and target features.

I am using ModelBuilder for a larger process, this is just the first step in the model. I need to hold the date field in the polygon when it is converted to a line or copy it in somehow after adding a field to the line feature.

Answer 1

If you are using Polygon To Line, look at the RIGHT_FID attribute in your output feature class. The value in that attribute is the same as the OBJECTID in the input feature class.

Keep in mind that, depending on what your feature polygons look like, you may get multiple RIGHT_FID features per original polygon. Take a look at the GP tool documentation, the diagram at the top is quite descriptive about what you should expect in the output.

A spatial join may also work, but, once again depending on your polygons, you may need to do multiple different joins, collate results and possibly even miss some joins. Ideally, use the existing attribute generated by the tool, because they represent a significantly easier (less compute-intensive) join and provide guaranteed-complete data. They are provided by the tool specifically for this purpose.