find Workspace based on MXD

[AnthonyTimpson2]

Hello

I am trying to make a script a bit more friendly by removing the need for a user to manually alter the directory location of a workspace.

Is it possible to read something in arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("CURRENT") so that all a person has to do is open the MXD of the project and run the script and the software will find the relevant directories within the appropriate MBD

[JimCousins]

you should include a "findAndReplaceWorkspacePaths" method on the "CURRENT" map document. If you acquire the path to the .mxd, you could use that within the Replace portion of the findAndReplaceWorkspacePaths, and set the workspace to the same relative path as the map.
Regards,
Jim

[AnthonyTimpson2]

you should include a "findAndReplaceWorkspacePaths" method on the "CURRENT" map document. If you acquire the path to the .mxd, you could use that within the Replace portion of the findAndReplaceWorkspacePaths, and set the workspace to the same relative path as the map.
Regards,
Jim

This sounds like a fantastic idea, being of limited skills, where would I begin? could you help with some pseudocode? I'd love the challenge of sorting out the actual code, but some hints on directions i should start plodding would be super 🙂

thanks for your help

[MathewCoyle · Accepted solution]

To get the mxd path.

mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("current") mxd_path = mxd.filePath

[curtvprice]

I am trying to make a script a bit more friendly by removing the need for a user to manually alter the directory location of a workspace.

Here's a shortcut to Jim's approach: if you provide layers from the mxd as arguments to your tool instead of dataset paths, and set up the mxd to use relative paths, you don't have to worry about paths at all. Once you have the layer inside the script, you can use arcpy.Describe(lyr).catalogPath to get its full path if you need to locate the workspace.

If you would rather use full dataset paths instead of layers as script parameters, here's the rest of Mathew's method to the next step of finding the folder where the current map document lives:

import os
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("current")
mxd_path = mxd.filePath
mxd_dir = os.path.dirname(mxd_path)

It may be easier to help you if you provided some information about what the script does, for example, what you are doing with the workspace path once you get it.

[FabianBlau]

You can run a script from outside ArcGIS. ArcGIS has to be installed of course.
This makes it maybe even easier/faster for the user.