My solution to merely updating the date used a Python module called elementTree, which was written some time ago and may be superceded by better tools, but it does the job at 9.3 well for me.http://docs.python.org/library/xml.etree.elementtree.htmlhttp://effbot.org/zone/element-index.htmI export the metadata for a given featureclass into XML. Unfortunately you cannot access the metadata in a geodatabase directly otherwise. There is no tool to unload metadata, you have to do this manually in ArcCatalog at 9.3, fixed at 10.0. If the featureclass was a shapefile it would already be an XML file.Then I load this template into a Python structure with elementTree that makes it easy to find each component for dates and change it. ElementTree then writes out the edited structure faithfully to a revised XML file. (While I was there I deleted the history)Finally there is a tool that will load metadata into a geodatabase.# LoadMetadata.py
# with altered dates for current month
# using element tree
# create original Metadata with same name as layer
# run this to alter to name_et.xml
# reload into filegeodatabase
# Note there is no tool to unload metadata
# 15 March 2010
import arcgisscripting,sys,os
import elementtree.ElementTree as ET
import sys,os,datetime
print
print
def alter(xmlfile,edDate,publishDate,createDate) :
"""
read xml file for featureclass or table
change dates to today,loading date and LINZ extract date
empty processing logs
write out file with _et suffix
return file name
"""
# print xmlfile
tree = ET.parse(xmlfile)
## print tree.getroot().tag, tree.getroot().text,tree.getroot().tail,tree.getroot().attrib
# Edition Date
elem = list(tree.iter("resEdDate"))[0]
# print elem.tag,elem.text
elem.text = edDate
## print elem.text
# Reference Date 001 (Creation)
elem = list(tree.iter("refDate"))[0]
# print elem.tag,elem.text
elem.text = createDate
## print elem.text
# note there may be two of these dates
# DateTypCd 001 and 002
# Reference Date 002 (Publication)
if len(list(tree.iter("refDate"))) > 1 :
elem = list(tree.iter("refDate"))[1]
# print elem.tag,elem.text
elem.text = publishDate
else :
# print "Skipping publication date",xmlfile
pass
## print elem.text
# clear out lineag if it exists
try :
lin = list(tree.iter("lineage"))[0]
# print lin.tag
lin.clear()
lin.text = "Cleared"
except :
gp.AddMessage("Skipping clear lineage")
outfile = xmlfile.replace(".","_et.")
tree.write(outfile)
return outfile
# ---------------------- main ----------------------
try :
publishDate = sys.argv[1]
createDate = sys.argv[2]
if createDate == '#' :
createDate = publishDate
gp.AddMessage(publishDate+type(publishDate))
except :
today = datetime.datetime.now()
firstSat = today.replace(day=1) + datetime.timedelta(5 - datetime.datetime.now().replace(day=1).weekday())
publishDate = firstSat.strftime("%Y%m%d")
createDate = publishDate
# override
# publishDate = '20100804'
# createDate = '20100710'
gp = arcgisscripting.create(9.3)
os.chdir("e:/crs/customer/conservation/metadata")
edDate = str(datetime.datetime.now().date()).replace("-","")
edDate = publishDate # '20100914'
gp.AddMessage(edDate+" edit date")
gp.AddMessage(publishDate+" publish date")
gp.AddMessage(createDate+" create date")
ws = "e:/crs/customer/conservation/corax.gdb"
metasrc = "e:/crs/customer/conservation/metadata"
gp.Workspace = ws
os.chdir(metasrc)
print
print ws
print metasrc
print
lstFC = gp.ListFeatureClasses("*")
for fc in lstFC :
# print fc
fcxml = metasrc+"/"+fc+".xml"
if os.path.exists(fcxml) :
etxml = alter(fcxml,edDate,publishDate,createDate)
gp.MetadataImporter_conversion(etxml,fc)
print fc,"updated"
gp.AddMessage(fc+" updated")
else :
print fcxml,"not found"
gp.AddError(fcxml+" not found")
lstTab = gp.ListTables("*")
for tab in lstTab :
# print tab
tabxml = metasrc+"/"+tab+".xml"
if os.path.exists(tabxml) :
etxml = alter(tabxml,edDate,publishDate,createDate)
gp.MetadataImporter_conversion(etxml,tab)
print tab,"updated"
gp.AddMessage(tab+" updated")
else :
print tabxml,"not found"
gp.AddError(tabxml+" not found")
# geodatabase metadata
etxml = alter(metasrc+"/corax.xml",edDate,publishDate,createDate)
gp.AddWarning("Load corax_et.xml to geodatabase by hand")
There are a lot more tools at 10 to handle metadata.
