Overwriting existing service using ArcPy

[BetsySchenck-Gardner]

I've been trying to figure out how to overwrite an existing service and I found the following code in ArcGIS Server Help:

# Import system modules import arcpy from arcpy import env import xml.dom.minidom as DOM   # Set environment settings env.workspace = "C:/data"  # Set local variables inServiceDefinitionDraft = "myMapService.sddraft" outServiceDefinition = "myMapService.sd" newType = 'esriServiceDefinitionType_Replacement'  xml = draftPath + in_sd_draft doc = DOM.parse(xml) descriptions = doc.getElementsByTagName('Type') for desc in descriptions:     if desc.parentNode.tagName == 'SVCManifest':         if desc.hasChildNodes():             desc.firstChild.data = newType outXml = xml     f = open(outXml, 'w')      doc.writexml( f )      f.close()  # Execute StageService arcpy.StageService_server(inServiceDefinitionDraft, outServiceDefinition)  # Set local variables inSdFile = outServiceDefinition inServer = "GIS Servers/myServerConnection"  # Execute UploadServiceDefinition arcpy.UploadServiceDefinition_server(inSdFile, inServer)

Looks straight forward except for the line "xml = draftPath + in_sd_draft".  Neither one of these variables (draftPath or in_sd_draft) are defined in the script and I don't know what they should be. Would it be c:/Data/myMapService.sddraft? Has anyone tried this script and gotten it to work?

TIA

[BradPosthumus · Accepted solution]

You're right, it looks like this one slipped through QA. But the rest of the script can tell you what it should be. Note that I haven't tried the script myself so this is mostly guesswork...

An sddraft file is just an XML file. Within it is a tag that looks like this:

<Type>esriServiceDefinitionType_New</Type>

This script replaces that tag in the sddraft file with this tag:

<Type>esriServiceDefinitionType_Replacement</Type>

I'm assuming this tells ArcGIS Server the service definition file that is created (staged) from this sddraft file will be used to overwrite an existing service when published. So you need to use the inServiceDefinitionDraft as the input for the DOM.parse function, which means you're right, it would be "c:/Data/myMapService.sddraft", or:

xml = env.workspace + "/" + inServiceDefinitionDraft 

[BetsySchenck-Gardner]

You were correct Brad. Get the script to work once I know what those two variables should be. Thanks.