Selecting and Querying Features Francisco Olivera, Ph.D., P.E. Srikanth Koka Department of Civil Engineering Texas A&M University

Selecting Features Selecting features consists of flagging a subset of features of a digital spatial dataset. Features can be selected either on the map or in the tables. When a feature is selected on the map, its corresponding record is selected in the table, and vice-versa. Many ArcGIS functions and commands apply only to selected features. When either all or none of the features are selected, ArcGIS functions and commands apply to all features.

… on the Map Features can be selected using the Select Feature tool. Click on it and then on the feature you want to select. Select the layers whose features are to be selected by clicking on Selection/Set Selectable Layer and then checking their boxes in the Set Selectable Layers window.

… on the Map To select multiple features, hold the Shift button down while clicking on the features or draw a box to select all the features that are completely or partially inside the box.

… on the Map Multiple features can also be selected with a query condition on an attribute using the Selection/Select By Attributes… menu. In the Select by Attributes window, select the Layer and Method, and then type the condition.

… on the Map Multiple features can also be selected with a query condition on their shapes using the Selection/Select By Location… menu. Adjacent features can be selected using the Intersect or Are within a distance of option on the same dataset.

… on the Map Using the Find tool, you can find the records of a user-selected layer that contain a user-defined text. After right-clicking on the objects found, you can Flash Feature, Zoom to Feature(s), Identify Feature(s), Set Bookmark, Select Feature(s) or Unselect Feature(s). To unselect all features, click on the Selection/Clear Selected Features menu.

… in the Table Records can be selected using the Pointer tool. Open the Table, click on the Pointer tool and then on the gray box to the left of the record you wish to select. To select multiple records, hold the Ctrl button down while clicking on the record.

… in the Table Multiple features can be selected with a query condition on an attribute by using Options/Select By Attributes… menu. Select Method and then type the condition.

… in the Table In the table: The Options/Select All menu selects all records of the table. The Options/Clear Selection menu unselects all records of the table. The Options/Switch Selection button toggles the selected records.

… in the Table Records can be found using the Find & Replace menu. In the table, click on the Options/Find & Replace menu, type the text (not number) you are looking for and click the Find Next button. It highlights (not selects) the records containing the text one after the other by clicking on Find Next. The text does not have to be the complete string of a record field.

Graphs Selected records or all records can be used for plotting in a graph. Graphs update automatically to the feature/record selection. To create charts, in the table click Options/Create Graph.

Graphs