Since I now use ArcGIS for my job (instead of QGIS, which I used for everything else, except for Drupal, where I use OpenLayers), I have to re-learn everything I once knew. Part of this involves the nitpicky issues that span both ESRI’s programming choices and their documentation. I will continue to update this post as I learn more.
ArcGIS 10.1:
- When using the Contour tool, there cannot be any spaces in the output path. Not just the filename, but the whole path to that file. The full list of characters you can’t use (just to be safe) is here (even though the output is a vector).
- Errors you may get: 010328 : Syntax error, 010267 : Syntax error in parsing grid expression.
- When exporting a shapefile that has a joined table (i.e., to create a new shapefile so you can query the joined data), the filename of the table that is being joined needs to be pretty short. Otherwise, the shapefile is not exported completely and there are no errors–Arc actually “finishes” and lets you add the new shapefile. Taking spaces out of the filename probably can’t hurt either.