Using a Variable in arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute

Question

I know this is a very basic problem I should be able to solve myself, but I've had no luck. I have a variable I want to use in the query for arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute, but the line that was working yesterday is now giving me an "error 000358: invalid expression". I simply want to use the variable CountyNM in the where clause.

Here is the section of code giving me issues:

CountyNM = "Hamilton"
arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management("hzCountyLYR", "NEW_SELECTION", 'CountyName =' + "'"+ CountyNM +"'")
Syntax: SelectLayerByAttribute_management (in_layer_or_view, {selection_type}, {where_clause}, {invert_where_clause})

• Joseph: Try changing CountyNM = "Hamilton" to CountyNM = 'Hamilton' and then use the where_clause: 'CountyName = ' + CountyNM.
• ed.hank: depending on the type of gdb you are using it could be [CountyName] = ' Hamilton' , also instead of using CountyNM as a variable, I would make SQL a variable and send the entire SQL statement into it, then plug SQL as the where clause.

Answer 1

As you may not know where is your data stored, use arcpy.AddFieldDelimiters() which will handle the syntax for the field name.

import arcpy
input_gdb = r'C:\GIS\SanDiego.gdb'
CountyNM = "Hamilton"
field_name = arcpy.AddFieldDelimiters(input_gdb, 'CountyName')
where_clause = """ {} = '{}' """.format(field_name,CountyNM)
print where_clause
>>> CountyName = 'Hamilton'