Getting ESRI's python libraries on a mac

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01-29-2014 08:48 AM
KennyWebster
New Contributor III
Hi there.  This may be a stupid question but figured I'd ask as it would make my life 1000x easier.

I'm a GIS guy, turned mobile/web GIS developer.  I do most of my work using objective C (iOS development) and Flex (web).  Thus, I'm mostly working in an OSX environment.  I have bootcamp with windows on my machine and arcgis etc installed there, but rarely need to switch over.  The one exception happens to be when I need to do up GIS related python scripts.

So, is it possible at all to develop these scripts from OSX or am I forced to switch over to windows to do this?
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JohnDye
Occasional Contributor III
I could be wrong but I dont think that's possible.

From the ArcGIS 10.2 Help arcticle on accessing licenses from python, the problem you're going to encounter is that when you import arcpy, it needs an ArcGIS License. So if you're using a License Server, you're going to need to establish a connection to that License Server and the Licensing Service on that machine somehow. You could try using the legacy SetProduct function, but again, how would you connect to the License Server?

In the case of a single use license, you would probably need an additional license just for your mac.

I do wonder if you could just copy over the entire ArcGIS python library and put it into your own Python install directories and import them within your IDE. You wouldn't be able to debug or run any of it but you could theoretically at least get the intellisense going.
It would be interesting to know if that works.

Seems to me in the end though, since you can't run anything Mac-side you'd be better off running Bootcamp or Parallels to get back to a Windows OS.
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JasonScheirer
Occasional Contributor III
You need Windows.
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