How to use python to export ArcGIS Server Map Service Properties?

Question

What arcpy module can I use to write a python script to mine for fields of my map service properties and export them to a .tx file? I assume we need to tap into GIS Servers within the ArcCatalog interface?

Answer 1

Quick and dirty code... substitute the "print" for some code to write to a textfile if thats what you want. You'll notice its hardcoded to one specific layer in a map service. You can enhance to loop through all layers, or even loop through all services on a server THEN all layers, THEN get fields.

import urllib, urllib2, json

def getServiceFields(URL): 

    fURL = URL + "?f=json"

    openURL = urllib2.urlopen(fURL, '').read()    
    outJson = json.loads(openURL)   

    return outJson["fields"]   


if __name__ == "__main__": 

    URL = r"http://sampleserver6.arcgisonline.com/arcgis/rest/services/Water_Network/MapServer/11"

    fields = getServiceFields(URL)

    for f in fields:
        print "Name : {}, Type : {}".format(f["name"], f["type"])

Also for reference, heres what you can get out of "f":

f["alias"]

f["length"]

f["type"]

f["name"]

f["domain"]

(per a 10.1 server, may change for 10.0)