Data Driven Pages Navigation in a Script

Question

Is there a method to simply progress from one data driven page to the next in a script? Essentially, like pressing the "Next Page" button on the toolbar. I have started with:

import arcpy
mxd = arcpy,mapping.mapdocument ("Current") # or should I reference the mxd directly?
ddp = mxd.datadrivenpages
cp = ddp.currentPageID
np = cp + 1 #Advance to next PageID?
arcpy.RefreshActiveView()

But cannot seem to find a way to advance to the next page, most searches yield methods to only export the pages.

The end goal is to build a tool that advances to the next data driven page and selects all features in a layer that has a page definition set to match the index. This will facilitate attribute editing for the selected features.

The image below shows the selection model which works just fine, I just need to be able to script something to move forward a page and then run the Model (or script it all) to simplify the process.

enter image description here

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Answer 1

You're assigning an integer value to a variable, not to your data driven pages. You are setting np = cp + 1, so, for example, if your current page is 2 then:

np = cp + 1

will return

np = 3

but np doesn't actually mean or do anything.

Instead you need to set mxd.dataDrivenPages.currentPageID = mxd.dataDrivenPages.currentPageID + 1 (or mxd.dataDrivenPages.currentPageID = cp + 1)

import arcpy
mxd = arcpy.mapping.MapDocument ("Current") 
ddp = mxd.dataDrivenPages
ddp.currentPageID += 1
arcpy.RefreshActiveView()

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As an aside, double-check all your code for correct syntax/caps/formatting. There are a lot of typos in your code snippet above that I had to fix to test. A comma , instead of a period . and several lowercase letters mxd.datadrivenpages instead of mxd.dataDrivenPages etc. Python is VERY picky on these points!

• SMS: Corrections per your comments do indeed make the script work. Your are correct that Python is very picky, I usually make those simple mistakes and scratch my head until I notice them. Thank you.