ArcMap

Describe object properties

Summary

The Describe function returns the following properties for all Describe objects.

Properties

PropertyExplanationData Type
baseName
(Read Only)

The file base name

String
catalogPath
(Read Only)

The path of the data

String
children
(Read Only)

A list of sub elements

Describe
childrenExpanded
(Read Only)

Indicates whether the children have been expanded

Boolean
dataElementType
(Read Only)

The element type of the element

String
dataType
(Read Only)

The type of the element

String
extension
(Read Only)

The file extension

String
file
(Read Only)

The file name

String
fullPropsRetrieved
(Read Only)

Indicates whether full properties have been retrieved

Boolean
metadataRetrieved
(Read Only)

Indicates whether the metadata has been retrieved

Boolean
name
(Read Only)

The user-assigned name for the element

String
path
(Read Only)

The file path

String

Code sample

Describe object properties example (stand-alone script)

Display some Describe object properties for a file geodatabase. 

import arcpy

# Create a Describe object
#
desc = arcpy.Describe("C:/Data/chesapeake.gdb")

# Print some Describe Object properties
#
if hasattr(desc, "name"):
    print "Name:        " + desc.name
if hasattr(desc, "dataType"):
    print "DataType:    " + desc.dataType
if hasattr(desc, "catalogPath"):
    print "CatalogPath: " + desc.catalogPath

# Examine children and print their name and dataType
#
print "Children:"
for child in desc.children:
    print "\t%s = %s" % (child.name, child.dataType)