Automatic batch update a file geodatabase from shapefiles

Question

Every week I need to update the same shapefiles that are used to produce up to date maps. The files are downloaded from 3 different web-servers.

The thing I want to do is to have a script that can search my folder where I put my downloaded shapefiles and replace the ones I've already got. This shouldn't be a problem when the shapefiles have the same name. But still, I can't seem to figure out how to solve this problem. What to use, model builder? Python script?

I bet this is a no-brainer question, but I'm stuck here :)

Answer 1

If you are convenient with Python then writing script for this task is preferred. Take a look at these key things:

1. Get a list of featureclasses/shapefiles in gdb/folder - ListFeatureClasses. In the bottom of this help article there is also an example "Copy shapefiles to a geodatabase" which you can use to start writing script.
2. Check for existence of featureclass/shapefile - Exists function.
3. Delete featureclass - Delete tool.
4. Copy shapefile to Geodatabase - Copy Features tool.

Answer 2

Here's a simple script that would run in same directory and check for and delete shapefiles... You can just run it from IDLE or ArcGIS python window or you could create a toolbox and add it as a script and add parameters.

    import arcpy, sys

    OutputFC = sys.path[0] + "\\downloaded1.shp"
    if arcpy.Exists(OutputFC):
        arcpy.Delete_management(OutputFC)
        print "deleting " + OutputFC