Is it possible to export data from SDE using python?

[ScottMcGee1]

I'd like to save the end user numerous steps to export data saved in the SDE database.  Right now they export the data as a shapefile, open the DBF in excel and save that to CSV so they can use the mail merge function in Word to populate inspection forms.

[ChristianWells]

Hi Scott, this should be relatively easy using arcpy.da.SearchCursor and csv.writer. If you create the cursor to search the rows, you can simply append them to a CSV. The nice thing about this is that you can open a writer object for CSV then iterate over the rows of the SDE table to read the row.

SearchCursor—Data Access module | ArcGIS for Desktop 

13.1. csv — CSV File Reading and Writing — Python 2.7.13 documentation 

[ChristianWells · Accepted solution]

Here is a sample of what I was talking about above. Let me know if you have any questions on this.

import arcpy, csv

#SDE Feature Class
fc = r"Database Connections\sdefile.sde\SDE.us_cities"

#Open CSV file
csvfile = open(r'c:\tmp\us_cities.csv', 'wb')

#Create CSV Writer
csvwriter = csv.writer(csvfile)

#Write header to CSV file
csvwriter.writerow(['FID', 'CITY_FIPS', 'CITY_NAME', 'STATE_NAME'])

#Loop through SDE FC and collect specific fields
for row in arcpy.da.SearchCursor(fc, ['OID@', 'CITY_FIPS', 'CITY_NAME', 'STATE_NAME']):
    #Write rows to CSV based on SearchCursor results
    csvwriter.writerow([row[0], row[1], row[2], row[3]])‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍‍

[DanPatterson_Retired]

at least one step simplified if you don't need geometry Excel To Table—Help | ArcGIS for Desktop 

[ScottMcGee1]

Thanks Christian, I think that is exactly what I'm looking for. Appreciate the help and the example.