Creating a custom geoprocessing tool
Along with being able to execute any of the available tools in your scripts, you can also create your own custom tools, which can also be called from a script. Custom tools are frequently created to handle geoprocessing tasks that are specific to an organization. These tools can be easily shared as well.
Getting ready
In this recipe, you will learn how to create custom geoprocessing script tools by attaching a Python script to a custom toolbox in ArcToolbox. There are a number of advantages of creating a custom script tool. When you take this approach, the script becomes a part of the geoprocessing framework, which means that it can be run from a model, command line, or another script. Also, the script has access to the environment settings and help documentation of ArcMap. Other advantages include a nice, easy-to-use user interface and error prevention capabilities. Error prevention capabilities that are provided include a dialog box that informs the...
