[GIS] Stopping edit session at start of ArcPy script

arcgis-10.2arcpyeditingmxd

I have a simple script that I use to select features from a ArcSDE database and export them to a personal.gdb.

Currently, I have to manually save and stop my edit session in the MXD so that the script can get a schema lock.

I have been trying to use arcpy.da.Editor at the start of the script to automatically end the edit session, but I have not been able to achieve that thus far.

Is this the correct way to end an edit session in the MXD I am running the script in? I would also like to be able to restart my edit session after the script runs.

import arcpy
import os
from arcpy import env
env.overwriteOutput = True

edit = arcpy.da.Editor
edit.startEditing(False, True)
print 'Stopping Edit'

# Delete Feature class from file Geodatabase
arcpy.Delete_management('C:\GIS\BlairMailer\Mailer.mdb\AddressPoint')
print 'Feature Class Deleted'

# Select by attribute
arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management ( "AddressPoint", "NEW_SELECTION", "   [DISTRICT] = 'Y'" or "[DISTRICT] = 'y'")

# Export selected feature to Geodatabase
arcpy.FeatureClassToGeodatabase_conversion("AddressPoint",'C:\GIS\BlairMailer\Mailer.mdb')
print 'feature Class Exported'

# Open Mailer
os.startfile(r'C:\GIS\BlairMailer\Mailer.docx')

This is the returned error when I try to run the script with an active edit session.

Runtime error 
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<string>", line 7, in <module>
TypeError: descriptor 'startEditing' requires a 'Workspace Editor' object   but received a 'bool'

Best Answer

As commented by @GISGe, the

arcpy.da.Editor [class] takes a workspace as argument: arcpy.da.Editor(workspace)

whereas you have:

edit = arcpy.da.Editor

See the Syntax section of the Editor class Help

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I have had lots of trouble/inconsistencies with this in the past. Instead, I have implemented some wrappers for both the update and insert cursors. This way, every time I run an update cursor, I know an edit session is properly started and stopped for the cursor. Here is my update cursor (with a helper function to get the workspace):

import arcpy
import os

def find_ws(path, ws_type=''):
    """finds a valid workspace path for an arcpy.da.Editor() Session

    Required:
        path -- path to features or workspace

    Optional:
        ws_type -- option to find specific workspace type (FileSystem|LocalDatabase|RemoteDatabase)

    """
    # try original path first
    if os.sep not in path:
        path = arcpy.Describe(path).catalogPath
    desc = arcpy.Describe(path)
    if hasattr(desc, 'workspaceType'):
        if ws_type and ws_type == desc.workspaceType:
            return path
        elif not ws_type:
            return path

    # search until finding a valid workspace
    SPLIT = filter(None, path.split(os.sep))
    if path.startswith('\\\\'):
        SPLIT[0] = r'\\{0}'.format(SPLIT[0])

    # find valid workspace
    for i in xrange(1, len(SPLIT)):
        sub_dir = os.sep.join(SPLIT[:-i])
        desc = arcpy.Describe(sub_dir)
        if hasattr(desc, 'workspaceType'):
            if ws_type and ws_type == desc.workspaceType:
                return sub_dir
            elif not ws_type:
                return sub_dir

class UpdateCursor(object):
    """wrapper class for arcpy.da.UpdateCursor, to automatically
    implement editing (required for versioned data, and data with
    geometric networks, topologies, network datasets, and relationship
    classes"""
    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
        """initiate wrapper class for update cursor.  Supported args:

        in_table, field_names, where_clause=None, spatial_reference=None,
        explode_to_points=False, sql_clause=(None, None)
        """
        self.args = args
        self.kwargs = kwargs
        self.edit = None

    def __enter__(self):
        ws = None
        if self.args:
            ws = find_ws(self.args[0])
        elif 'in_table' in self.kwargs:
            ws = find_ws(self.kwargs['in_table'])
        self.edit = arcpy.da.Editor(ws)
        self.edit.startEditing()
        self.edit.startOperation()
        return arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(*self.args, **self.kwargs)

    def __exit__(self, type, value, traceback):
        self.edit.stopOperation()
        self.edit.stopEditing(True)
        self.edit = None

So if you save this somewhere in your PYTHONPATH and call the update cursor, you can always be sure that an edit session is started and stopped. This wrapper also allows the usage of the with statement for the cursor.

If you saved the script above as some_module.py and save it in your PYTHONPATH, you can call it like this:

import some_module

fc = r'C:\Path\to_your\FileGeodatabase\YourFC' 
fields = ["field1", "field2"]

with some_module.UpdateCursor(fc, fields) as rows:
    for row in rows:
        row[1] = row[0]
        rows.updateRow(row)

Best Answer

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