How can I turn a python list into a table?

Question

I am trying to create a table of coded values so each textual description has a numerical attribute. The order of numbers is not important - they just need to be unique.

What I have so far is a python list of all unique values, so all I need to do now is add this to a table and create numbers. Is there a method in arcpy that will allow me to save my list as a table with an objectID?

Answer 1

To do this you should use a combination of ArcPy and Python.

You can use Python's enumerate function to get a number for each item in your list.

You use arcpy.da.InsertCursor() to create and populate a new row for each item in the list.

Answer 2

An alternative method is to pass your list into a Structured Array and then convert that. When writing to a table it automatically puts in an ObjectID field.

Below is some sample code.

import arcpy,numpy

try:

    # List of unique values, note this is a
    # list of lists with each list holding a single value
    myList = [[1],[2],[3],[4],[99]]

    # Convert myList into a list of tuples,
    # this is the required input format of structured Array
    tupList = [tuple(row) for row in myList]

    # Convert to numpy array
    dt = numpy.dtype([('myValue',numpy.int32)])
    arr = numpy.array(tupList,dtype=dt)

    # Write out to dBase table
    sTable = r"C:\temp\test.dbf"
    arcpy.da.NumPyArrayToTable(arr,sTable)
except Exception as e:
    print str(e)

The output is a dBase table with an ObjectID field and an integer field called myValue with 5 rows of data.