Whether you create it or not, metadata is a critical part of GIS analysis. ArcGIS includes a built-in GUI metadata editor, but has scant access to metadata properties from Python. The arcpy_metadata package provides this access, allowing large Python packages that generate their own geospatial outputs in ArcGIS to properly document the data.

arcpy_metadata is pure Python and its only dependency is arcpy (installed with ArcGIS). It's available on the Python Package Index so you can get arcpy_metadata via pip (pip install arcpy_metadata).

If you don't have or don't know how to use pip, you can install arcpy_metadata by cloning/downloading this repository and running setup.py install in the root folder

Creating the Metadata Editor

import arcpy_metadata as md
metadata = md.MetadataEditor(path_to_some_feature_class)  # currently supports Shapefiles, FeatureClasses, RasterDatasets and Layers

Get text items (returns string)

title = metadata.title
abstract = metadata.abstract

Change text items

metadata.title = "The new title"
metadata.abstract = "This is the abstract"

Get list items (returns list)

tags = metadata.tags
for tag in tags:
    print tag

Change list items

metadata.tags = ["tag1", "tag2"]

Get numeric items (return int or float)

min_scale = metadata.min_scale
max_scale = metadata.max_scale

Change numeric items

metadata.min_scale = 500000
metadata.max_scale = 500

Get date items (returns date object)

last_update = metadata.last_update
last_update_year = metadata.last_update.year

Change date items (takes both date objects and formated string (yyyymmdd)

from datetime import date
today = date.today()
metadata.last_update = today
metadata.last_update = "20160221"

Get contact items (returns contact object)

contact = metadata.point_of_contact
contact_name = metadata.point_of_contact.contact_name
contact_email = metadata.point_of_contact.email

Change contact items (all contact items are string)

metadata.point_of_contact.contact_name = "First and Last Name"
metadata.point_of_contact.email = "email@address.com"

Saving the changes back to the file

metadata.finish()  # save the metadata back to the original source feature class and cleanup. Without calling finish(), your edits are NOT saved!

If you want to enable automatic updates of your metadata (feature classes only) call.

metadata.finish(True) 

This might overwrite some of your recent edits including the title.

The code is based on a set of core classes that provide set/append/prepend operations, and we would love pull requests that add classes or attributes to cover additional portions of metadata specs.

arcpy_metadata uses the strategy of exporting the metadata from the layer, then edits the xml export based on your method calls. When you're done, use finish() to save your data back to the source.

Does not yet support all metadata items.

arcpy_metadata only works with 32-bit Python. We use arcpy.XSLTransform_conversion() to extract metadata from geodatabases. 64bit arcpy python bindings for background processing do not support tools inside the metadata conversion toolset.

arcpy_metadata was initially a project of the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and has received significant contributions from the World Resources Institute. It was created as part of a larger project funded by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife Biogeographic Data Branch and further developed for Global Forest Watch. We thank our funders for their support and their commitment to high quality geospatial data.