Extent of in_memory layer/adding an in_memory layer to map

[Anonymous User]

Hello, 

I'm trying to get the extent of an in_memory layer from a standalone script. 

However I'm having some issues running into this. 

For some reason I can't add the in_memory layer to the map current map. See could below. the # are just different ways I've tried. 

I keep getting an error saying 

s2 = map.listLayers('parcels_lyr')[0]
IndexError: list index out of range

I'm pretty sure that it can't find the layer. When I list the layers it is not in there. 

The goal is to export a map with the extent of a 2 mile buffer (in_memory layer) around the original boundary. So  it will show the original boundary with some room around all sides. But I don't want to show the buffered boundary, it's just to get the extent. 

arcpy.analysis.Buffer(s,r"in_memory\buffer2","2 MILE")
arcpy.MakeFeatureLayer_management(r"in_memory\buffer2", "parcels_lyr")
for lyr in map.listLayers():
    arcpy.AddMessage(lyr.name)
s2 = map.listLayers('parcels_lyr')[0]
#map.addDataFromPath(r"in_memory\buffer2")
#map.insertLayer(s, r"in_memory\buffer2", "BEFORE")
#lyt.camera.setExtent(lyt.getLayerExtent(s2, False, True))

 ArcPro 2.5 python 3.x

Thanks!

[Anonymous User · Accepted solution]

Hi @Anonymous User ,

It's documented here that when using the in_memory workspace with geoprocessing models, that the output needs to be written to disk to be displayed as a layer in the map - and while the documentation isn't explicit about this also applying to Python scripts, I suspect the same limitation would also apply. 

If however, our main interest in the in_memory buffer output is getting its extent  so we can use that to set the view extent for our map export  - I'd suggest we use a slightly different approach so that we can get the extent directly from the in_memory feature class, without having to create a layer  in the map. One such approach we could use for this purpose would be to use the arcpy.da.Describe function

arcpy.analysis.Buffer(s,r"in_memory\buffer2","2 MILE")
buff_extent = arcpy.da.Describe(r"in_memory\buffer2")['extent']

# Use the buff_extent variable to set camera extent, then export the map ...

Hope this helps!

[Anonymous User]

Perfect! Just had to change the CS to get it in the correct units! 

Thanks!