For loop in ModelBuilder?

Question

I have a roads dataset downloaded for Christchurch, New Zealand, from OpenStreetMap. The attribute table contains a column titled 'fclass', which contains the type of road each feature represents (e.g. motorway, secondary, service, etc).

Using ModelBuilder, I would like to loop through each feature in the dataset and, for each type of road, assign a numeric value to a new column (e.g. '4' if road type is 'motorway' and '1' if road type is 'tertiary'). The column I wish to add the score to already exists, it is just a case of calculating it for each road type.

This loop, or lookup, forms a small part of a much larger model.

Answer 1

If just dealing with a few road types then the manual approach suggested by @Arthur_Crawford should suffice.

If you wanted to assign a specific number to a specific road type you need to create a look up table. So first field is the textual road type "motorway" the second would contain the number. Then join that table to your featureclass. No need for looping or select and update, can be done with one tool (Join Field) if the lookup table exists.

Answer 2

You could use a select by attribute tool, then calculate field in series. You don't really need a loop.