topic Setting Map Document Properties in Python Questions

Setting Map Document Properties

WarrenMedernach — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:40:23 GMT

Hello,

I am trying to update Map Document Properties, but am struggling with the syntax for a carriage return/ line feed in the description property.

If I use the Python window I can retrieve the description property and it looks something like this:

>>> mxd.description
u'Test Line 1\r\nTest Line 2'

If I set the description property with the Python window with the following string:

>>> mxd.description='New Line 1\r\nNew Line 2'

It works as expected.

However, if I try to specify that same string via a script parameter it adds an extra '\' and looks like:

u'Test Line 1\\r\\nTest Line 2'

Any ideas/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Warren M

Re: Setting Map Document Properties

MathewCoyle — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 17:46:51 GMT

Should work

mxd.description= r'New Line 1\r\nNew Line 2'

Re: Setting Map Document Properties

WarrenMedernach — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 18:49:43 GMT

Hi Mathew,
Thanks, but like I mentioned, everything works when I execute it from the Python window. The problem is when I try to use an input parameter like this:

Re: Setting Map Document Properties

MathewCoyle — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:06:24 GMT

Ahh, sorry for my misunderstanding.

The only solution I can see is to have a parameter for each line you want to add, workable if you have a fixed number of lines to add each time.

Re: Setting Map Document Properties

MathewCoyle — Fri, 10 Dec 2021 23:00:36 GMT

Actually now that I think about it, you can have some other character that you can split on and input those as variables surrounded by the returns, something like this.

desc = arcpy.GetParameter(0)
desc = desc.split("#")
mxd.description = desc[0]+"\r\n"+desc[1]