topic Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error in ArcGIS API for Python Questions

ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

ewmahaffey — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:28:35 GMT

I'm trying to use the ArcGIS API for Python without ArcPy. I've written a basic script that connects to a WFS, creates a FeatureLayer, then FeatureSet. I then tried to use the FeatureSet.save() function to simply save the data to a local Shapefile. When I run the script (in the Idle IDE), I get an error saying: "ImportError: ArcPy is required to export a feature class". From a few other threads that I've read, I should be able to run this without ArcPy. Any thoughts?

from arcgis.features import FeatureLayer from arcgis.features import FeatureSet hurricaneDir = r'C:/Workspace/Temp' PastTracksURL = 'https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Active_Hurricanes_Sampler/FeatureServer/3' feature_layer = FeatureLayer(PastTracksURL) feature_set = feature_layer.query(out_fields='*') feature_set.save(hurricaneDir, "PastTracks_Temp_Data.shp") print ("WFS Data Successfully Saved as a Shapefile")

Python 3.11.2 (tags/v3.11.2:878ead1, Feb 7 2023, 16:38:35) [MSC v.1934 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information. ======= RESTART: C:\Workspace\Temp\WFS_to_FeatureClass_forEsriSupport.py ======= Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:\Workspace\Temp\WFS_to_FeatureClass_forEsriSupport.py", line 10, in <module> feature_set.save(hurricaneDir, "PastTracks_Temp_Data.shp") File "C:\Workspace\Python_Virtual_Environment\Lib\site-packages\arcgis\features\feature.py", line 1409, in save raise ImportError("ArcPy is required to export a feature class.") ImportError: ArcPy is required to export a feature class.

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Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

CodyPatterson — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 18:41:14 GMT

Hey @ewmahaffey

You may be able to use geopandas to save as a Shapefile is this here is giving you some issues:

from arcgis.features import FeatureLayer from arcgis.features import FeatureSet import geopandas as gpd import json hurricaneDir = r'C:/Workspace/Temp' PastTracksURL = 'https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Active_Hurricanes_Sampler/FeatureServer/3' feature_layer = FeatureLayer(PastTracksURL) feature_set = feature_layer.query(out_fields='*') geojson_str = feature_set.to_geojson gdf = gpd.read_file(json.dumps(json.loads(geojson_str))) output_shp = hurricaneDir + '/PastTracks_Temp_Data.shp' gdf.to_file(output_shp) # Here you may need to_file like this: to_file(output_shp, driver='ESRI Shapefile') print("WFS Data Successfully Saved as a Shapefile")

I haven't used this method in quite a long time, you might need to try a couple different conversions out!

Cody

Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

ewmahaffey — Wed, 26 Mar 2025 19:33:48 GMT

Thanks Cody. I've tried using Pandas GDFs and SDFs but haven't had much luck. One thing I did notice was that this code would work for a WFS that has point data, but not a WFS with polylines

feature_set.sdf.spatial.to_featureclass(PastTracks_Temp_Output, overwrite=True)

I tried running your code sample and got a KeyError

KeyError: 'geometry'

Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

Clubdebambos — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 09:32:38 GMT

Hi @ewmahaffey,

Give this a whirl. While this works for me, it could be that I have access to ArcPy, so it would be interesting to see if it works in your environment,

from arcgis.features import GeoAccessor from arcgis.features import FeatureLayer ## the filepath for the output shapefile hurricane_shp = r'C:/Workspace/Temp/PastTracks_Temp_Data.shp' ## the url to the feature layer PastTracksURL = 'https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Active_Hurricanes_Sampler/FeatureServer/3' ## create FeatureLayer object feature_layer = FeatureLayer(PastTracksURL) ## convert to df df = GeoAccessor.from_layer(feature_layer) ## export to shapefile df.spatial.to_featureclass(hurricane_shp)

Please let us know.

All the best,

Glen

Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

ewmahaffey — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 13:31:48 GMT

Thanks Glen. I ran your code in my Python VENV and I'm getting a similar error message that I received when I was testing the use of SDFs and GDFs. It seems like I need to define the geometry type or something. From I can tell it thinks the geometry is in polygon format even though it's polylines, and no results come back. It's so strange

Python 3.11.2 (tags/v3.11.2:878ead1, Feb 7 2023, 16:38:35) [MSC v.1934 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32 Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license()" for more information. = RESTART: C:/Workspace/Temp/WFS_to_FeatureClass_forEsriSupport_wGeoAccessor.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "C:/Workspace/Temp/WFS_to_FeatureClass_forEsriSupport_wGeoAccessor.py", line 17, in <module> df.spatial.to_featureclass(hurricane_shp) File "C:\Workspace\Python_Virtual_Environment\Lib\site-packages\arcgis\features\geo\_accessor.py", line 2107, in to_featureclass result = to_featureclass( File "C:\Workspace\Python_Virtual_Environment\Lib\site-packages\arcgis\features\geo\_io\fileops.py", line 1297, in to_featureclass res = _pyshp2(df=df, out_path=out_location, out_name=fc_name) File "C:\Workspace\Python_Virtual_Environment\Lib\site-packages\arcgis\features\geo\_io\fileops.py", line 1510, in _pyshp2 if geom.type == "Polygon": AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'type'

Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

ewmahaffey — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 15:34:47 GMT

OK, so we discovered that the code is actually correct, but the backend service has data integrity errors. Which is unfortunate. There is a record that does not have a geometry value, that causes errors.

I tested a couple of the other layers coming from this service, and found a similar issue. However, I tested layers from https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Active_Hurricanes_v1/FeatureServer/3 and it works fine. I hope this helps someone else who might stumble upon this. Maybe the data will get fixed in the "Active_Hurricanes_Sampler" service. For now I just plan to query out the Null records.

Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

ewmahaffey — Thu, 27 Mar 2025 18:04:13 GMT

Although I wasn't able to get the FeatureSet.save() function to work like the API Reference guide said it would. I kept getting the "ImportError: ArcPy is required to export a feature class" error. Here's the final script in case anyone needs it.

from arcgis.features import FeatureLayer from arcgis.features import FeatureSet ## the filepath for the output shapefile hurricane_shp = r'C:/Workspace/Temp/PastTracks_Temp_Data.shp' ## the url to the feature layer PastTracksURL = 'https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Active_Hurricanes_Sampler/FeatureServer/2' #PastTracksURL = 'https://services9.arcgis.com/RHVPKKiFTONKtxq3/arcgis/rest/services/Active_Hurricanes_v1/FeatureServer/3' ## create FeatureLayer object feature_layer = FeatureLayer(PastTracksURL) df = feature_layer.query(where = "Shape__Length is not null", out_fields = "*", return_geometry=True).sdf print (df) ## export to shapefile df.spatial.to_featureclass(hurricane_shp) print ("Done")

Re: ArcGIS API for Python - FeatureSet.save() Error

RDCOGIS — Wed, 04 Jun 2025 15:48:07 GMT

curious,....now that you are filtering out the bad geometry, can you go back to the .save method, without pandas .sdf

fl = FeatureLayer(_itemUrl) features = fl.query(where='Shape is not NULL', out_sr=26911) # save to disk print('saving the Feature Layer to Shapefile') features.save(save_location=_pathShps, out_name=_friendlyName + '.shp')