UpdateLayer with arcpy

Question

I am trying to use updatelayer in three mxd's. Each mxd has 3 data frames. I am getting an error, can anyone help?

import arcpy,os,sys,string
import arcpy.mapping
from arcpy import env
env.workspace = r"C:\Project"
for mxdname in arcpy.ListFiles("*.mxd"):
 print mxdname 
 mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"C:\Project\\" + mxdname)
 df = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd, "Layers")[0]
 updateLayer = arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, "ways", df)[0]
 sourceLayer = arcpy.mapping.Layer(r"C:\Project\layers\ways.lyr")
 dfList = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd, "*")
 for df in dfList:
 for lyr in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, "", dfList): 
 if lyr.name == "ways": 
 arcpy.mapping.UpdateLayer(df, updateLayer, sourceLayer, True)
 print 'UpdateLayer' 
 mxd.save()
del mxd

• Hornbydd: What is the error message?
• recurvata: What version of Arc are you using?
• Jim: Hey YYC - in your 'for df in dfList:' loop, it appears you may be running the ListLayers function with an empty wildcard string, and additionally using the entire returned dfList (list of dataframes) as the dataframe argument in the ListLayers funciton. Maybe re-write this for loop as: for df in dFlist: for lyr in arcpy.mappping.ListLayers(mxd, data_frame=df)
• newGIS: i work with arcview 10.3. i get en error: TypeError: <type 'list'>

Answer 1

Your arcpy.mapping.UpdateLayer is referencing the same layer (updateLayer) in the same data frame for each iteration of your for loop. Thus it is most likely throwing an error because you are trying to update a layer from one map data frame but indicating it is located in a different data frame.

Replace with this:

arcpy.mapping.UpdateLayer(df, lyr, sourceLayer, True)

Answer 2

finely i used this code:

import arcpy,os,sys,string
import arcpy.mapping
from arcpy import env
# UpdateLayers for all df
env.workspace = r"C:\Project"
sourceLayer = arcpy.mapping.Layer(r"C:\Project\layers\ways.lyr")
for mxdname in arcpy.ListFiles("*.mxd"):
print mxdname 
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument(r"C:\Project\\" + mxdname)
df = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd, "Layers")[0]
updateLayer = arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, "ways", df)[0]
dfList = arcpy.mapping.ListDataFrames(mxd, "*")
for df in dfList:
 for lyr in arcpy.mapping.ListLayers(mxd, "", df): 
 if lyr.name == "ways":
 arcpy.mapping.UpdateLayer(df, lyr, sourceLayer, True)
 print 'UpdateLayer' 
mxd.save()
del mxd 

thanks to Emil