Understanding ArcGIS field calculator behaviour with geometries?

Question

In Getting Properties of Next Record Using Calculate Field Tool in ModelBuilder? the OP asks for suggestion on calculation of distances between pairs of points in a feature class.

I thought of alternative solution using field calculator with a very basic logic:

• for first record memorise point geometry from Shape field into global variable pG and return negative distance
• for other records calculate distance between current Shape and one in memory, assign pG = current Shape, return distance.

Expression:

i=0
def FirstOrOthers(shp):
 global pG,i
 if i==0:  i, dist, pG = 1, -1, shp
 else: dist, pG=shp.distanceTo(pG),shp
 return dist
#------
FirstOrOthers( !Shape! )

Output shown in field DISTANCE:

When I changed expression slightly, to memorise first point of point geometry:

i=0
def FirstOrOthers(shp):
 global pG,i
 if i==0:  i, dist, pG = 1, -1, shp.firstPoint
 else: dist, pG=shp.distanceTo(pG),shp.firstPoint
 return dist
#------
FirstOrOthers( !Shape! )

It worked as expected:

It means that field calculator refuse to compute distance between 2 point geometries, but does it for point geometry and a point. This is risky, because point does not have spatial reference defined. This is why in scripts I always use 2 point geometries to compute distance between 2 points.

Any thoughts on that odd behaviour of field calculator?

I tested using ArcGIS Desktop 10.3.

Answer 1

Further experiment with expression:

i=0
def FirstOrOthers(shp):
 global pG,i
 if i==0:  i, pG = 1, shp; result=-1
 else:  result= pG.firstPoint.X; pG = shp
 return result
#---------
FirstOrOthers(!Shape!)

demonstrates issues with storing point geometrty in memory. Note that X coordinate returned is coordinate of current geometry instead of (as intended !) one stored in memory:

This the weirdest thing I ever saw in years of coding.