topic Re: Arcpy: Make sure there's selection before execute 'Copy Features" in Python Questions

Arcpy: Make sure there's selection before execute 'Copy Features"

helenchu — Fri, 31 Aug 2018 23:19:26 GMT

I use "Copy Features" tool to make a layer from selection. It's crucial that I check for a selection first or it will copy the whole layer. Please help me with that. Thank you!

Re: Arcpy: Make sure there's selection before execute 'Copy Features"

DanPatterson_Retired — Sat, 01 Sep 2018 00:29:19 GMT

for map and pro

Layer—ArcPy | ArcGIS Desktop

getSelectionSet ()

Returns a layer's selection as a Python set of object IDs.

which will be > 0 if there is a selection.

If you don't have a layer, then use MakeFeatureLayer first then delete if needed

Re: Arcpy: Make sure there's selection before execute 'Copy Features"

RandyBurton — Sat, 11 Dec 2021 06:06:42 GMT

And something like this should also work:

selection = arcpy.SelectLayerByAttribute_management(layer, "NEW_SELECTION",
                                                    where_clause="Field = 'Something'")

result = arcpy.GetCount_management(selection)
count = int(result.getOutput(0))
if count:
    print count
    arcpy.CopyFeatures.......
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See: Get Count

You could use GetCount to count items in the layer before and after the selection and if selection is less than the original count and greater than zero then do the copy.