How long will arcgisscripting module be around?

832
4
06-22-2012 01:17 PM
RandyKreuziger
Occasional Contributor III
I've only modified a small percentage of scripts to use arcpy.  At what version will arcgisscripting go away and arcpy be the only option?
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4 Replies
NobbirAhmed
Esri Regular Contributor
It is not how long arcgisscripting will be around - it is how soon you will be using the new functionalities of arcpy package 😄

For example, in 10.1, there is a data access module in the ArcPy site package. This module makes data processing way faster than using the existing cursors.
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JasonScheirer
Occasional Contributor III
For a very, very long time. Arcpy is built on it, and we don't really want to ever break backward compatibility with your scripts.
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curtvprice
MVP Esteemed Contributor
Just want to add, if you want your scripts to be fully forward compatible, say, so it will work in 9.3 and 10.0 and ..., you need to specify a version of arcgisscripting. Esri has kindly provided a way to make sure the arcgisscripting object model for previous versions of ArcGIS is still available.

gp  = arcgisscripting.create(9.3)


The module it self hasn't changed that much - mostly changes to the list functions and cursors, but enough to break your scripts in future versions if you forget to specify the version you want.
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NobbirAhmed
Esri Regular Contributor
My 9.2 code still works in 10.1. The .create(9.3) makes the new functionalities in 9.3 available to the script.

import arcgisscripting
gp = arcgisscripting.create()

rows = gp.SearchCursor(r"C:\data\fgdb.gdb\lines")

row = rows.next()

while row:
    print row.getValue("MYFIELD")
    row = rows.next()
    
del row
del rows
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