How does one access a featurelayer in SDE via Python?

Question

I am trying to use Arcpy to run the CopyFeatures_management script so that I can copy a featurelayer in SDE.

What do I use for the input (and output, for that matter, since I'll be copying the layer back to SDE) to access the layer?

Answer 1

You'll use the path to the SDE file plus the feature class name, so something like

CopyFeatures_management(r'c:\connections\my.sde\fc1', r'c:\connections\my.sde\newfc')

Answer 2

Two ways that I can think of, both involve having a Database Connection already set up in ArcCatalog. If the Database Connection file does not already exist, you can use CreateArcSDEConnectionFile_management in your script to create it.

1) Set the current workspace to the database connection, and then refer to the feature class by name.

arcpy.env.workspace = r"Database Connections\MySDEDatabaseConnection.sde"
fc = "SDE.myFeatureClass"

If the feature class is in a feature dataset, tack on the the feature dataset name to the workspace like so:

arcpy.env.workspace = r"Database Connections\MySDEDatabaseConnection.sde\SDE.MyFeatureDataset"

2) Supply the full path to the feature class including the database connection:

fc = r"Database Connections\MySDEDatabaseConnection.sde\SDE.MyFeatureDataset\SDE.MyFeatureClass"

Some tools require the first method, others require the second.

Also "Database Connections" is actually just a shortcut to %APPDATA%\ESRI\Desktop10.0\ArcCatalog (for ArcGIS 10 on Windows XP). You can just as easily supply the full path to .sde files that are stored in that folder or other folders.