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The script I'm writing requires a specific attribute of the building polygon that the data frame extent is currently focused on. Is there a way to grab this data?

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In ArcGIS 10, you can use arcpy.mapping to do this. It would look something like:

mapdoc = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument("current")
dataframe = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mapdoc, mapdoc.activeView)[0]
extent = dataframe.extent

You can then pass the extent in as parameters to GP tools etc.

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After you've got the active extent, you can get feature attributes by using Select Layer By Location (tinyurl.com/298khqo) – scw Jul 31 '10 at 21:07
Where would I input the active extent in this tool? SelectLayerByLocation_management (in_layer, {overlap_type}, {select_features}, {search_distance}, {selection_type}) For overlap_type, I'm using COMPLETELY_WITHIN, but according to the documentation, I can only select features from the in_layer that are completely within a polygon, not an extent. – Tanner Aug 7 '10 at 21:22
As far as I know, it should still work as an input there. Try it out. – Jason Scheirer Aug 9 '10 at 11:33

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