Lab

6 Querying Data

Due Oct 22

This lab has two sections. Section 1 will deal with basic querying and Section 2 with
joining and relating attribute tables. In Section 1 you will do exercises that
correspond to Chapter 8 in the Getting to Know ArcGIS book and answer the
additional bold faced questions as well as produce reports. Section 2 deals with
relating and joining attributes tables. You are to do 9a and 9b exercises in Chapter 9
for this section along with making a map and turning it in.

Section 1: Basic queries

Perform exercises 8a, 8b and 8c from Chapter 8 in Getting to Know ArcGIS (GTKAG).
Print out the report you produced from exercise 8c.

Boolean operators:
The boolean operators AND, OR and NOT are indispensable for extracting
information from large databases. Basically, a boolean operator is used to apply
criteria to a database, according to standard rules. In case you are unfamiliar with
them, here is a brief explanation of how they work:

AND - Also known as "intersection", the boolean "AND" operator returns data which
meet both of two criteria specified in the expression. For example the following
expression is applied to the parcels theme from this chapter:

(zip code 92373) AND (at least 3 bedrooms)

The expression will return only those parcels which have a zip code of 92373 and
also have a structure with 3 or more bedrooms. It will exclude a parcel which had 4
bedrooms but a different zip code or a parcel with zip code 92373 but with a
structure with only 2 bedrooms.

OR - Also known as "union", the "OR" operator returns data that meet either of two
criteria specified. For instance the following expression is applied to the parcels
data set from this chapter:

(zip code 92373) OR (at least 3 bedrooms)

This would return not only all parcels in the database having structures with 3 or
more bedrooms, but also all others having the zip code 92373, regardless of
bedrooms

NOT - Called "exclusion", the NOT operator excludes all data meeting a certain
criterion. The following example is applied to the same database:


(zip code 92373) NOT (at least 3 bedrooms)
This expression returns all parcels having the zip code 92373 except those that have
structures with 3 or more bedrooms.

1. How many, if any, parcels for sale in this database have structures with
3 or 4 bedrooms? Do any of these houses have pools? If there are any
parcels for sale that meet these conditions, print out a report with their
addresses, sale price, size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms.


Section 2: Joining and relating tables

Perform exercises 9a and 9b from Chapter 9 in Getting to Know ArcGIS.

1. Explain difference between relating and joining tables.

2. How many different pits contained zinc as a toxic metal?

3. Make a map of the Louisiana showing the pits that contain zinc as a toxic
metal.