Trying to change values in a field with a cursor
<p>We are trying to change the values in a column from a <code>shapefile</code> to create a new field/column with the new values. We've tried using a search and update cursor to accomplish this as well as a for loop and field calculator. <strong>Does anyone have an idea for how to go about accomplishing this in a simplistic way?</strong></p>

<p>Here's a sample of our script in which we try to convert all of the items labeled "<strong>Montane_Chaparal</strong>" in the column to a new value "<strong>Dry_Forest</strong>" in the new column</p>

<pre><code>veg = "Cal_Veg.shp"
field = ["WHRNAME"]

therows=arcpy.UpdateCursor(veg, field)

for therow in therows:
    if (therow.getValue(field)==" "):
        therow.setValue("Montane_Chaparral","Dry_Forest")
    therows.updateRow(therow)

print "Done."
</code></pre>

<p>I have also tried: </p>

<pre><code>veg = "Cal_Veg.shp"
with arcpy.da.SearchCursor(veg,["WHRNAME","NewVeg"]) as SCursor:
    for row in SCursor:
        if row[0] == "Montane Chaparral": 
            with arcpy.da.InsertCursor(veg,["NewVeg"]) as ICursor:
                for new_row in ICursor: 
                    NewVeg = "Dry Forest"
                    ICursor.insertRow(new_row)
print "done"
</code></pre>