arcpy.management.Copy to In Memory Error

Question

Does anyone know if  arcpy.management.Copy is meant to be the same as arcpy.CopyFeatures_management? It appears to be the same unless I use it to copy features to memory in which case it gives the following error.

ERROR 000979: Cannot copy between different workspaces.

Example code is below:

fc = r"gisdata.sde\GIS.GISDATA.assets\GIS.GISDATA.plots"

arcpy.CopyFeatures_management( fc, r"memory/in_memory_temp_file") # This works with no errors

arcpy.management.Copy( fc, r"memory/in_memory_temp_file") # This gives the error above

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank-you!

MobiusSnake · Answer

Yup, even very basic GDB stuff like domains aren't supported if I remember correctly.

dougbrowning · Answer

I have for sure seen that memory is not a full GDB.  For example certain SQL functions do not work.  Not documented anywhere that I have found so its a hunt and peck which can drive you nuts.

MobiusSnake · Answer

I can only speculate, maybe it's because it's "lossy"?  You lose attachments, relationships, that kind of thing, so you have to use a tool from the conversion toolbox instead.