arcsmith.ws

Workspace

Helpers for setting up geodatabase workspaces inside 'Tool.execute'.

Create a file geodatabase with automatic parent folder creation
Get a workspace path for intermediate outputs, switching between memory and a scratch .gdb

Functions of the `ws` module

init_gdb - create a file geodatabase, reusing or overwriting an existing one
temp_space - get a workspace path for intermediate outputs (in-memory or scratch GDB)

init_gdb

Creates a file geodatabase at the specified location, creating the parent folder if it does not already exist. If the geodatabase already exists, it is reused by default, or recreated when overwrite=True.

init_gdb(folder, gdb_name, overwrite=False) -> str

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`folder`	`str` or `Path`	required	Folder in which to create the geodatabase.
`gdb_name`	`str`	required	Name of the geodatabase. A trailing `.gdb` extension, if supplied, is stripped, so `"glacier"` and `"glacier.gdb"` behave identically.
`overwrite`	`bool`	`False`	What to do when the target `.gdb` already exists. `False` (default) reuses the existing geodatabase and returns its path (idempotent). `True` deletes and recreates it empty.

Returns

str: absolute path to the geodatabase. This is the newly created .gdb unless an existing one was reused (overwrite=False).

Existing geodatabases

arcpy.env.overwriteOutput does not apply to geodatabase creation, so CreateFileGDB raises if the .gdb already exists. init_gdb handles this automatically: by default it reuses the existing workspace, and overwrite=True forces a fresh, empty one. Reuse hands back whatever schema is already on disk, so pass overwrite=True if a clean workspace matters.

Examples

# Create a geodatabase
gdb = arcsmith.ws.init_gdb(r"C:/Projects/Glacier", "glacier")
# C:/Projects/Glacier/glacier.gdb

# Create and set as the arcpy workspace in one line
arcpy.env.workspace = arcsmith.ws.init_gdb(folder, gdb_name)

# Force a fresh, empty geodatabase even if one already exists
gdb = arcsmith.ws.init_gdb(folder, "glacier", overwrite=True)

temp_space

Returns a workspace path for intermediate outputs, either the in-memory workspace or the session scratch geodatabase.

temp_space(use_memory=True) -> str

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
`use_memory`	`bool`	`True`	If `True`, returns `'memory'`. If `False`, returns `arcpy.env.scratchGDB` for on-disk inspection.

Returns

str: 'memory' or the absolute path to the scratch geodatabase.

Development workflow

Set use_memory=False while building a tool to inspect intermediate outputs in ArcGIS Pro. Switch back to True (the default) for production runs; no other code changes needed.

memory limitations

The 'memory' workspace does not support everything an on-disk geodatabase does. Certain field types, attribute indexes, and a handful of tools cannot write to it. If a tool fails against 'memory', use use_memory=False for compatibility, not only for inspection.