arcpy.CalculateField_Management using sql statement

Question

I am using python to calculate fields with a SQL statement. I need to select based on two attributes and calculate another attribute. The way I am typing it is incorrect syntax.

This is a small portion of the code and will run on a specific feature class.

Here is the code:

codeblock = """def calcFerry(FERRY_TYPE,AR_AUTO):
    if(FERRY_TYPE == 'B') and (AR_AUTO == 'N')
         return 'P'
    elif(FERRY_TYPE == 'B') and (AR_AUTO == 'Y')
         return 'A'"""

arcpy.CalculateField_management(outTemp_file, "FERRY",     calcFerry(!FERRY_TYPE!,!AR_AUTO!)", "PYTHON", codeblock)

Answer 1

There's another way to calculate fields:

    shapefile = "FerryData"
    fields    = ("FERRY_TYPE", "AR_AUTO","CATEGORY")
    with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(shapefile, fields) as Cursor:
         for row in Cursor:
             if row[0]=='B' and row[1]=='N':
                row[2] = 'P'
             elif row[0]=='B' and row[1]=='Y':
                row[2] = 'A'
             Cursor.updateRow(row)

The shapefile name ("FerryData"), and the calculated field ("CATEGORY") are just examples. Change them to match yours. This is way faster than CalculateFields in python scripts.