topic Re: Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets in Python Questions

Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets

JakeAdamsUGRC — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 16:52:41 GMT

I have a script that runs SummarizeWithin() as a step in the analysis process. If I pass it paths to feature classes within an on-disk gdb for the input and output data it runs fine, but if I try to use "memory" datasets ("memory/in_points" and "memory/out_hexes"), it fails with "ERROR 000187: Only supports Geodatabase tables and feature classes".

Does SummarizeWithin() not work with "memory" datasets?

Re: Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets

DanPatterson — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 17:07:18 GMT

try : r"memory\in_points"

etc.

Write geoprocessing output to memory—ArcGIS Pro | Documentation

It supports featureclasses etc and there is no list of tools that don't support memory workspaces

Re: Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets

JakeAdamsUGRC — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:29:45 GMT

Good catch on the slash, and that is how I understood "memory" to work- pretty much a drop-in replacement for on-disk datasets (but with some limitations as noted in the docs).

However, SummarizeWithin() is still failing on me with "memory" output feature classes. It works with on-disk or memory source points but fails if I use a memory destination.

I've been testing in a stand-alone script and also in iPython, both in a conda environment created via miniconda and arcpy installed via conda install arcpy -c esri.

Re: Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets

DanPatterson — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 18:45:34 GMT

The only thing you might try is MakeTable in memory first, then use it.

I rarely use since I dont find it speeds anything up much

Re: Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets

JakeAdamsUGRC — Thu, 25 Feb 2021 22:21:45 GMT

I was using memory to avoid having to clean up a bunch of intermediate files, but I've built a workaround with a temporary GDB that I can nuke when I'm finished. I'll stick with that until I have time to troubleshoot more. Thanks for the suggestions!

Re: Running SummarizeWithin against "memory" datasets

__JackCharde__ — Thu, 27 Feb 2025 18:39:53 GMT

I see this is a 4yo post, but this still persists. SummarizeWithin does support memory dataset, but you have to use in_memory, which is a legacy memory-based workspace for ArcMap, and anything written to in_memory can't actually be added to a map. It will first be converted to a file GDB dataset, and then added. This doc explains the memory workspace. Definitely frustrating, as I am encountering it, too.