Upgrade to ArcGIS 10.3 produces strange behavior with Python

[Anonymous User]

I have recently upgraded to ArcGIS 10.3 and all my script tools are not working.  For some reason, within any ArcGIS process, the built-in sys module does not have the argv attribute.  It works as expected in stand-alone.  This affects me because I use sys.argv in virtually all the script tools I have developed for my organization (70+) to pass in arguments.

For example, if I have a function like this:

def function(arg1, arg2, arg3):
    pass

It is easier to call the function and pass in parameters from a script tool like this:

function(*sys.argv[1:])

rather than:

param1 = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(0)
param2 = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(1)
param3 = arcpy.GetParameterAsText(2)

function(param1, param2, param3)

However, after the upgrade, ONLY in any ArcGIS process the sys module is lacking the argv attribute.  See pictures below:

fails in ArcGIS Python Window

and works as expected in regular IDLE shell

Is there something different about how ArcGIS is accessing Python in version 10.3?

[BruceHarold]

Caleb

What do you get in a Python Window with this statement?

hasattr(sys,'argv')

Regards

[Anonymous User]

It says False.  It also does not show up as it should if I use dir(sys).  It is simply gone.

[BruceHarold · Accepted solution]

Weird, sys works normally on my 10.3 system.

I'll copy this thread to our Python people but as you're dead in the water you might want to open a support call.

Regards

[Anonymous User]

Yes, I'm talking to support right now.  I logged onto one of our new servers with 10.3, and I could not reproduce this issue. Must be an error with my install.  Thank you, Bruce.

[DavidWynne]

Hi Caleb,

Anything else missing on sys? What does dir(sys) return?

On mine, I see

>>> dir(sys)
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__egginsert', '__excepthook__', '__name__', '__package__', '__plen', '__stderr__', '__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_clear_type_cache', '_current_frames', '_getframe', '_mercurial', 'api_version', 'argv', 'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder', 'call_tracing', 'callstats', 'copyright', 'displayhook', 'dllhandle', 'dont_write_bytecode', 'exc_clear', 'exc_info', 'exc_type', 'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'exitfunc', 'flags', 'float_info', 'float_repr_style', 'getcheckinterval', 'getdefaultencoding', 'getfilesystemencoding', 'getprofile', 'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount', 'getsizeof', 'gettrace', 'getwindowsversion', 'hexversion', 'long_info', 'maxint', 'maxsize', 'maxunicode', 'meta_path', 'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_cache', 'platform', 'prefix', 'py3kwarning', 'setcheckinterval', 'setprofile', 'setrecursionlimit', 'settrace', 'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdout', 'subversion', 'version', 'version_info', 'warnoptions', 'winver']

-Dave

[DavidWynne]

If you need to evade this with minimum edits, could use an approach like below to mimic what sys.argv gives you.

argv = tuple(arcpy.GetParameterAsText(i)
    for i in range(arcpy.GetArgumentCount()))

-Dave

[curtvprice]

This is the method I use, in the hope that GetParameterAsText will play nicer (cleaner) with the GP architecture than going out to sys.argv. Maybe it doesn't matter.

[Anonymous User · Accepted solution]

Yes, this is what I used to use before I switched to sys.argv[1:].  I uninstalled ArcGIS 10.3 and re-installed and it seemed to fix the issue.  Something must have gotten corrupted when I did the original install. 

[SusanJones]

Hi Caleb

I came across this a few weeks ago with another site here in Auckland. It seems like a sort of custom install was rolled out to the business and python was not installed correctly. It happens a lot when IT roll out GIS software across the organisation.

Also, can you check if Python 2.7 is installed under ArcGIS ?

Are there any other copies of Python 2.7 still hanging around the machine?

Perhaps the Python windows environmental variables need still to be configured,

I have always done the ESRI standard installation and it has always worked for me.

Susan