topic Re: Where is the arcpy.da.Describe() documentation? in Python Questions

Where is the arcpy.da.Describe() documentation?

DanDeegan — Wed, 13 May 2020 21:53:23 GMT

I stumbled on using da.Describe a few months ago and find it very useful. I am looking for more information about it and can't find any of the resources that explained it to me a few months ago. I am using arcpy.da.Describe(fc)["fields"] to do things and want to know what else i can put in ["???"]

Describe—Data Access module | Documentation

That SHOULD contain some examples.

But everything i find using that page uses the old. arcpy.Describe()

Re: Where is the arcpy.da.Describe() documentation?

JoshuaBixby — Thu, 14 May 2020 00:39:06 GMT

arcpy.da.Describe and arcpy.Describe return the same underlying information, the difference with arcpy.da.Describe is that it returns a Python dictionary with most or all of the properties pre-populated. That is why the documentation for arcpy.da.Describe points back to arcpy.Describe because it doesn't make sense for Esri to duplicate the documentation of the properties themselves. Since the DA version returns a populated Python dictionary, you can just call dict.keys() to see all of the available properties.

Re: Where is the arcpy.da.Describe() documentation?

AJR — Thu, 08 Feb 2024 16:41:28 GMT

They return mostly the same information. For example, arcpy.da.describe doesn't return the connection properties (i.e. server, database, etc.) for an sde workspace object. They may be brought into parity at some point in the future.

Re: Where is the arcpy.da.Describe() documentation?

chris_del101 — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 18:19:25 GMT

I have the same question. Docs are not very helpful.