Determine ArcMap Document Version using ArcPy – How to Guide

arcgis-10.0arcgis-10.1arcpymxd

Is there a way with ArcPy to identify the version of a Map Document (MXD). I am working on a solution to inventory our MXD's and would like to know if a document is 8.1, 9.2, 10.0, etc.

I am currently using ArcGIS 10.0, but if there is an update in 10.1 that does not exist in 10.0, I would appreciate hearing that, too.

I see there is a previous question of How can you find ArcGIS version programatically?, but it references all ArcObjects solutions (which I suppose I could call from python, but I would prefer not to).

Best Answer

I know this question is a few months old, but I'm posting this in case it helps others. I developed this kludge to parse version numbers from MXD documents. It basically reads the first 4000 or so characters of an MXD document and searches for a version number. I tested with MXD versions 9.2, 9.3, 10.0, and 10.1.

import re

def getMXDVersion(mxdFile):
    matchPattern = re.compile("9.2|9.3|10.0|10.1|10.2")
    with open(mxdFile, 'rb') as mxd:
        fileContents = mxd.read().decode('latin1')[1000:4500]
        removedChars = [x for x in fileContents if x not in [u'\xff',u'\x00',u'\x01',u'\t']]
        joinedChars = ''.join(removedChars)
        regexMatch = re.findall(matchPattern, joinedChars)
        if len(regexMatch) > 0:
            version = regexMatch[0]
            return version
        else:
            return 'version could not be determined for ' + mxdFile

Here is an example of scanning a folder for mxd files and printing the version and names

import os
import glob
folder = r'C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\mxd_examples'
mxdFiles = glob.glob(os.path.join(folder, '*.mxd'))
for mxdFile in mxdFiles:
    fileName = os.path.basename(mxdFile)
    version = getMXDVersion(mxdFile)
    print version, fileName

Which returns this:

>>> 
10.0 Arch_Cape_DRG.mxd
9.2 class_exercise.mxd
9.3 colored_relief2.mxd
10.1 CountyIcons.mxd
10.0 DEM_Template.mxd
9.2 ex_2.mxd
10.0 nairobimap.mxd
10.0 slope_script_example.mxd
10.1 TrailMapTemplateBetter.mxd
10.0 Wickiup_Mountain_DEM.mxd
>>>
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