topic Calling arcpy.env.overwriteOutput in Python Questions

Calling arcpy.env.overwriteOutput

JohanSmith — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:00:42 GMT

How do I go about calling the arcpy.env.overwriteOutput function?
i.e. [ATTACH=CONFIG]12779[/ATTACH]

The print statement clearly shows that it is 'True' but my if else statment is not calling it in the same manner.

J

Re: Calling arcpy.env.overwriteOutput

JasonScheirer — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:04:58 GMT

== True

, not

== 'True'

, the quotes matter

Re: Calling arcpy.env.overwriteOutput

curtvprice — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 09:40:08 GMT

The quotes matter

The reason the quotes matter is arcpy.env.overwriteOutput is a boolean value, not text, no matter how you set it.

>>> arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = 'True'
>>> arcpy.env.overwriteOutput
True
>>> arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = 1
>>> arcpy.env.overwriteOutput
True

Fortunately for you, it seems, Esri has set things up so if you set it this property to 'False' (string) it evaluates to False. (Normally in Python, any non-null string evalulates to boolean True.)

>>> arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = 'False'
>>> arcpy.env.overwriteOutput
False
>>> bool('False')
True

Also since it is boolean type your original test can be written more simply:

if arcpy.env.overwriteOutput:
  print "It is true!"
else:
  print "It is false!"