Exporting attribute table to text file(.txt) in ModelBuilder

Question

I'm having trouble exporting directly an ArcGIS attribute table to a text file (.txt) while I'm working in ModelBuilder. I tried the followings and none of them worked:

• Copy Rows tool: I tried to add the (.txt) extension to the output table but it still gave a (.dbf) table.

• Export Feature Attribute to ASCII: It adds the coordinates (X, Y) which are not needed. Also, the order of the attributes is not the same as the one in the table.

• Export table to Excel: I know that it could work if I export my Excel file to a text file from the Excel panel but I'd prefer having this process completely automatic!

EDIT: LOOK AT THE COMMENTS AT THE BOTTOM

Answer 1

A way of converting an attribute table to a comma separated text file is to run the Table to Table tool. The location would be a folder such as c:\temp\mydata and the output table would be test.txt. If you set the field mappings then you can choose which fields get exported.

But you may get yourself into trouble, what happens if a text value contains a comma? Personally I would keep the attribute table in a structured format such as a DBase format as that enforces data integrity. If you have non-roman characters then they may get lost, so a unicode table such as a table in a personal geodatabase is best. Text formats may be simple and easy to understand but a database table takes away the pain...food for thought.

Answer 2

Export Feature Attribute to ASCII in the Spatial Statistics toolbox can also do such a conversion.

Answer 3

You can do it with a geoprocessing tool. Use toolbox "Conversion toools", go to "To Geodatabase", select the tool "Table to Table". Select input, select output location (a directory). And the crucial part, write .txt in the output table name. It works.

Answer 4

If you don't mind trying arcpy, the following should generally work:

OutputFilePath = r"path\to\file"
with open(OutputFilePath, 'w') as outFile:
    with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(AttributeTableOrFeatureClass, "*") as cursor:
        for row in cursor:
            for val in row:
                outFile.write("%s," % val)
        outFile.write("\n")