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- Right-click the polyline shapefile > "Joins & Relates" > "Join..." (or properties > Joins & Relates) and provide the Join Data as follows:
- "What do you want to join to this layer?" = Join attributes from a table
- "Choose the field in this layer that the join will be based on:" = LEFT_FID
- "Choose the table to join to this layer, or load the table from disk:" = (the input polygon shapefile)
- "Choose the field in the table to base the join on:" = OBJECTID (or FID)
- (Optionally) Click the ‘Validate Join’ button. Do not expect all records to match - because the ‘left’ side of all exterior lines will have no neighboring polygon. Do not worry if you receive a “Field names that match reserved words should not be used in database schema and can cause the join to fail. The following fields match reserved words….” message
- Click ‘OK’
- Set a definition query to exclude the ‘NULL’ values of the input polygon shapefile. (This might refer to a .FID or a .OBJECTID)
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- This should reveal the internal boundary lines. (External boundary lines are deselected because they border the outside of the country and received a 'NULL' left polygon identifyier. THIS WORDING CAN BE IMPROVED.)
- Open the output polyline shapefile attribute table
- Use the Field Calculator to calculate all the LEFT_Ax values (for the LEFT_Ax fileds recently added to the polyline shapefile ) equal to the coresponding administrative levels of the polygon shapefile.
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