Summary
The Describe function returns the dataset properties described below.
Dataset properties are available in many types of Describe objects.
Properties
| Property | Explanation | Data Type |
| canVersion (Read Only) | Specifies whether the dataset can be versioned. | Boolean |
| changeTracked (Read Only) | Specifies whether the dataset is change tracked. | Boolean |
| datasetType (Read Only) | Specifies the type of dataset being described.
| String |
| DSID (Read Only) | The dataset ID. | Integer |
| extent (Read Only) | The Extent object. Note:extent is available for spatial datasets only. | Extent |
| isArchived (Read Only) | Specifies whether the dataset has been archived. isArchived is only supported for an enterprise geodatabase. | Boolean |
| isVersioned (Read Only) | Specifies whether the dataset is versioned. | Boolean |
| isTraditionalVersioned (Read Only) | Specifies whether the dataset is traditional versioned. | Boolean |
| isBranchVersioned (Read Only) | Specifies whether the dataset is branch versioned. | Boolean |
| MExtent (Read Only) | A space-delimited string (minimum m-value, maximum m-value). Note:MExtent is available for spatial datasets only. | String |
| minimumRequiredClientVersion (Read Only) | Specifies the minimum version of ArcGIS AllSource required to open the dataset. Note:This property represents the minimum client version to access the dataset. For example, a value of 13.4 represents version 3.4 for ArcGIS AllSource and version 11.4 for ArcGIS Enterprise. The default value of 10.0 is used for unregistered datasets. | String |
| spatialReference (Read Only) | Returns the SpatialReference object for the dataset. Note:spatialReference is available for spatial datasets only. | SpatialReference |
| workspace (Read Only) | Returns a Describe object with the properties of the input dataset's workspace. See Workspace properties for specific workspace-related Describe details. Note:Use this property to determine workspace properties for many data types including layers, and feature classes in a geodatabase that may or may not be in a feature dataset. | Describe |
| ZExtent (Read Only) | A space-delimited string (minimum z-value, maximum z-value). Note:ZExtent is available for spatial datasets only. | String |
Code sample
The following stand-alone script displays dataset properties for a shapefile.
import arcpy
# Create a Describe object from the shapefile
#
desc = arcpy.Describe("C:/temp/xy.shp")
# Print dataset properties
#
print(("Dataset Type: {0}".format(desc.datasetType)))
print(("Extent:\n XMin: {0}, XMax: {1}, YMin: {2}, YMax: {3}".format(
desc.extent.XMin, desc.extent.XMax, desc.extent.YMin, desc.extent.YMax)))
print(("MExtent: {0}".format(desc.MExtent)))
print(("ZExtent: {0}".format(desc.ZExtent)))
print(("Spatial reference name: {0}:".format(desc.spatialReference.name)))