PrintPython is a language that is used to automate computing tasks through programs called scripts. In the introduction to this lesson, you learned that automation makes work easier, faster, and more accurate. This applies to GIS and many other areas of computer science. Learning Python will make you a more effective GIS analyst, but Python programming is a technical skill that can be beneficial to you even outside the field of GIS.
Python is a good language for beginning programming. Python is a high-level language, meaning you don’t have to understand the “nuts and bolts” of how computers work in order to use it. Python syntax (how the code statements are constructed) is relatively simple to read and understand. Finally, Python requires very little overhead to get a program up and running.
Python is an open-source language, and there is no fee to use it or deploy programs with it. Python can run on Windows, Linux, Unix, and Mac operating systems.
In ArcGIS, Python can be used for coarse-grained programming, meaning that you can use it to easily run geoprocessing tools such as the Buffer tool that we just worked with. You could code all the buffer logic yourself, using more detailed, fine-grained programming with the ArcGIS Pro SDK, but this would be time consuming and unnecessary in most scenarios; it’s easier just to call the Buffer tool from a Python script using one line of code.
In addition to the Esri help which describes all of the parameters of a function and how to access them from Python, you can also get Python syntax (the structure of the language) for a tool like this :
- Run the tool interactively (e.g., Buffer) from the Geoprocessing pane with your input data, output data and any other relevant parameters (e.g., distance to buffer).
- Beneath the tool parameters, you should see a notification of the completed running of the tool. Right-click on that notification. (Alternatively, you can click the History button under the Analysis tab to obtain a list of run tools.)
- Pick "Copy Python command."
- Paste the code into the Python code window or PyScripter (see next section) or to see how you would code the same operation you just ran in Pro in Python.