topic Re: How to import a python toolbox? in Python Questions

How to import a python toolbox?

ionarawilson1 — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 13:54:10 GMT

Can anybody tell me how to import a python toolbox and access the parameter of a tool inside the toolbox?

I have started importing the toolbox using the ImportToolbox function but I am not sure if this is correct:

    def onSelChange(self, selection):          ptoolbox = arcpy.ImportToolbox("D:/ArcGISData/SARS/Python_10April2013/Toolbox.pyt")

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

JasonScheirer — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 15:52:38 GMT

That is how you import a toolbox. What do you mean "access the parameters"? What are you trying to do?

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

ionarawilson1 — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 18:09:20 GMT

I would like to change the values of a tool parameter. How can I do that?

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

JasonScheirer — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:25:53 GMT

You can't. The Python toolbox objects are isolated from your Python interpreter.

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

ionarawilson1 — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:35:04 GMT

So, there is no way to access a tool parameter if not inside a toolbox? What can I access when I import the toolbox?

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

JasonScheirer — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 19:46:57 GMT

When you import the toolbox you can call the tools.

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

ionarawilson1 — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 20:48:47 GMT

How? Can you show me an example? Thanks

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

JasonScheirer — Fri, 01 Nov 2013 21:00:46 GMT

Say you have a tool called MyTool in C:\Users\me\my.pyt and you've given the toolbox the alias mynewtools.

arcpy.ImportToolbox(r"C:\Users\me\my.pyt") arcpy.mynewtools.MyTool("a", "b", "c")

This is all very clearly documented in the help.

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

ionarawilson1 — Tue, 05 Nov 2013 13:55:24 GMT

Thanks Jason

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

TedChapin — Wed, 15 Apr 2015 21:02:23 GMT

Nowhere in the documentation for ImportToolbox does it say to use arcpy.alias.toolname(). It says to use arcpy.toolname_alias(). Your syntax works, the syntax in the documentation does not, which is what led me here. Thanks for the tip, however you discovered it.

Even using the latest documentation:

ImportToolbox—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

AdamMesser1 — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:54:52 GMT

Python toolboxes should not be considered isolated from your data management and analysis workflow. Many of us have a desire to use the functionality in our python toolboxes in conjunction with our other arcpy code. You could build an easy to import companion .py file to hold your toolbox business logic next to your actual toolbox (ie. myTbx.pyt and myTbxFunctions.py), however, pyt files can be accessed and used in your interpreter or IDE by using imp. The example below shows this with our metadataUpdateItems tool. There are a couple important things to note if using pyt outside of ArcCatalog:

python toolbox parameters have a valueAsText attribute that is set when running via ArcCatalog and will not be created when building the arcpy.parameter object in this manner.
- The alternative to valueAsText is to interpret the .value attribute as a string where needed
Additional arcpy.parameter attributes are updated in ArcCatalog including, but not limited to, param.altered or param.hasBeenValidated, in the case below we added a variable to bypass those checks when not using in arcCatalog

import imp

def getParamByName(params, name):
    outParam = None
    for param in params:
        if param.name == name:
            outParam = param

#import toolbox
myTbx = imp.load_source('t',r'C:\dsCode\toolboxes\myTbx.pyt')
#build the toolbox parameter objects list
params = myTbx.metadataUpdateItems().getParameterInfo()
#retrieve the parameter to update and change its value
inLyr = getParamByName(params, 'inLyr')
inLyr.value = 'C:\\temp\mySDElyr'
#update the parameters
#Note: the second argument is a runAsFunction binary T/F
# this is to bypass the parameter.altered or parameter.validated checks of the updateParameters code
myTbx.metadataUpdateItems().updateParameters(params,True)
#update a list parameter
agolTags = getParamByName(params, 'agolTags') 
agolTags.values = [u'wildlife (open data)']
#execute the toolbox
myTbx.metadataUpdateItems().execute(params, None)

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

RhettZufelt — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 17:16:06 GMT

Nowhere in the documentation for ImportToolbox does it say to use arcpy.alias.toolname(). It says to use arcpy.toolname_alias(). Your syntax works, the syntax in the documentation does not, which is what led me here. Thanks for the tip, however you discovered it.

That explains it. I had to make the alias and the name identical to get it to work. Next time, I'll try it backwards from the documentation.

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

AndrewMoffitt — Fri, 17 Mar 2017 17:29:32 GMT

I'd like to add that the toolbox name cannot contain spaces, so far as I can tell.

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

ShaunWalbridge — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 19:54:55 GMT

It works fine with spaces, if you're running into issues, post a code snippet and we can take a look. Here's an example of an import which works fine on my end:

arcpy.ImportToolbox(r'z:\pyt with spaces\more spaces.pyt')‍‍
# <module 'touche'>‍‍

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

AndrewMoffitt — Thu, 23 Mar 2017 20:59:04 GMT

For me, it was a non-python toolbox that caused the spacing issue. (I think. Now I'm second-guessing what I did to fix it).

Re: How to import a python toolbox?

ShaunWalbridge — Fri, 24 Mar 2017 04:01:04 GMT

OK, if you see the same behavior again, post it to GeoNet and we can see what's going on.

Cheers, Shaun