Using CopyFeatures_management without copying source GDB domains to 'in_memory' workspace?

Question

I know it's probably the opposite of what would generally be desirable, but I am trying to temporarily copy a Feature Class from a File GDB with Domains into a in_memory intermediate FC without maintaining the source Domains.

I cannot prove this because I don't know how (where) to look for the in-memory FC I produce, but when I do

temp_folder = r'in_memory'
arcpy.arcpy.CopyFeatures_management(fc, os.path.join(temp_folder, 'temp'))

,I think I not only copy the entire source FC into the in_memory workspace, but also the source FileGDB's Domains.

Can someone confirm this behaviour? Is there a way to avoid this using the same tool (CopyFeatures_management) or (only if it's not possible) a similar tool?

I would like to keep using in_memory for my intermediate file, rather than create physical intermediate files because:

1. I would have to delete them
2. I would have to properly check for errors within my script, handle them in order to delete intermediate files before they reach the 'delete' part of the script
3. in_memory is faster because it uses RAM (is this true?)

I tried deleting the domains, but the code below seems to make ArcGIS crash all the time (imagine domains comes from something like arcpy.ListDomains)...

for d in domains:
    arcpy.DeleteDomain_management(temp_folder, d)

Answer 1

When you copy a feature class to an in_memory workspace then all that I would have expected you to be copying is a feature class.

However, when I ran the test below it created output that indicates that the domains associated with a feature class are copied into the in_memory workspace, and if that in_memory feature class is copied out to a new file geodatabase then the domain is re-created in that new file geodatabase.

import arcpy

arcpy.env.overwriteOutput = True

arcpy.CreateFileGDB_management("C:/Temp","test")
arcpy.CreateTable_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb","testTable","","")
arcpy.AddField_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testTable","txtField","TEXT")
arcpy.AddField_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testTable","txtValue","TEXT")
cursor = arcpy.da.InsertCursor("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testTable",["txtField","txtValue"])
cursor.insertRow(("test1", "long text about test 1"))
del cursor
arcpy.TableToDomain_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testTable","txtField","txtValue","C:/Temp/test.gdb","testDomain","Test Domain","APPEND")
domains = arcpy.da.ListDomains("C:/Temp/test.gdb")
print "Domains in original:"
for domain in domains:
    print domain.name
arcpy.CreateFishnet_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC","0 0","0 1","1","1","2","2","","NO_LABELS", "DEFAULT","POLYGON")
arcpy.AddField_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC","txtField","TEXT","","","","","NULLABLE","NON_REQUIRED","testDomain")
arcpy.CalculateField_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC","txtField",""""test" + str( !OID! )""","PYTHON")
arcpy.CreateFileGDB_management("C:/Temp","test2")
arcpy.CopyFeatures_management("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC","in_memory/testFC")
arcpy.CopyFeatures_management("in_memory/testFC","C:/Temp/test2.gdb/testFC")
domains = arcpy.da.ListDomains("C:/Temp/test2.gdb")
print "Domains in new file geodatabase:"
for domain in domains:
    print domain.name

The output from the above was:

>>> 
Domains in original:
testDomain
Domains in new file geodatabase:
testDomain
>>> 

Answer 2

Using @PolyGeo's script as basis, you can create an in_memory feature class that does not carry the domain information, it's just a bit of work:

desc = arcpy.Describe("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC")
shape = desc.shapeType
spatref = desc.spatialReference

# create in_memory FC with the same spatial characteristics
temp = arcpy.CreateFeatureclass_management("in_memory", "testFC", shape,
                                           spatial_reference=spatref)
fields = []
for field in arcpy.ListFields("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC"):
    if field.type.upper() not in ["OID", "GEOMETRY"]:
        fields.append(field.name)
        # Now add the attribute characteristics
        arcpy.AddField_management(temp, field.baseName, field.type, field.precision,
                                  field.scale, field.length, field.aliasName,
                                  field.isNullable, field.required)    

# And populate with attribute information
with arcpy.da.SearchCursor("C:/Temp/test.gdb/testFC", fields) as sCursor:
    with arcpy.da.InsertCursor(temp, fields) as iCursor:
        for row in sCursor:                
            iCursor.insertRow(row)    

arcpy.CopyFeatures_management("in_memory/testFC", "C:/Temp/test2.gdb/testFC")

Probably going to be a fair bit slower. Delete domains after the fact with the following:

for domain in arcpy.da.ListDomains(workspace):
   arcpy.DeleteDomain_management(workspace, domain.name)

Note: During creation of the in_memory feature class, you can't use the input feature class as a template, as that will also carry the domain information (as it should)!