extarc - Utility functions for arcpy

This repository contains python functions for commonly repeated tasks, e.g. getting new scratch feature classes in a scratch gdb, or getting certain projections. It's named extarc because it... extends arcpy. It also sounds like a cool ship from The Expanse which you should really watch. It utilizes the arcpy module which ships with ArcMap Desktop / ArcGIS Pro and so it's assumed that your python environment has access to these modules. That is, if you can't import arcpy already, why are you trying to use a helper library? Currently, arcpy is not part of requirements.txt because it's not clear whether it will pass a CI check.

Installation

While you can always just clone this repository into your project, or add it as a submodule via:

> git submodule add https://github.com/joshpsawyer/extarc.git

...it's a much better practice to install it as a module in your python environment - less maintenance, no unnecessary packages in your code. While structured for pypi, it's currently not in the index. You need to install a development build. Anaonda is recommended for environment management, but because Anaconda doesn't directly support this - you need to use pip.

Assuming you have anaconda installed and a target environment, open your command prompt / terminal. If you're installing it to the conda environment cool-env, switch to that environment now:

(base)> conda env activate cool-env
(cool-env)> conda env activate cool-env

From the prompt, type:

(cool-env)> pip install --editable=git+https://github.com/joshpsawyer/extarc.git#egg=extarc

The latest master commit will be installed under the package named extarc-joshpsawyer. To uninstall, type:

(cool-env)> pip uninstall extarc-joshpsawyer

Usage

import extarc as ea