Creating temporary in-memory geodatabase using ArcPy

Question

I have been using in-memory workspace for creating temporary features, but I was wondering if we could create a temporary in-memory geodatabase (using ArcPy) and then use it for importing other in-memory features?

Answer 1

As @PolyGeo said, you won't be able to use the in_memory workspace for Geodatabases.

If you want a "temporary" geodatabase that is saved on disk, you can use the Scratch GDB.

#Set the path to GDB, if desired. 
#Consult help if you don't want to set this and want to know its location.
arcpy.env.scratchWorkspace = r"D:\GIS\data"

#Path to newly created gdb.
gdb = arcpy.env.scratchGDB

print gdb
>>> "D:\GIS\data\scratch.gdb"

Answer 2

An in_memory workspace is one of the three broad categories of workspace available to you - the others are folder and geodatabase.

However, you can think of the in_memory workspace being already analogous in structure to a file geodatabase held in memory, but there are limitations that are mostly documented.

What you are describing sounds like it is outside the design of in_memory workspaces.

I frequently write/read/process feature classes to/from/in in_memory workspaces using ArcPy but when I want to make them available in a file (or any other type of) geodatabase I copy them to disk.