Enable/Install FileGDB Driver in Windows-Python

Question

Scoured the internet, github, and stack exchange for a couple days to get the FileGDB Driver installed/enabled within a venv. Purpose is to generate a FileGDB (NOT read a gdb - OpenFileGDB) and utilize features such as domains, field alias, subtypes, etc. Currently using uv and windows 10, but also have mamba/conda available as well. Most tutorials and posts are well over 5 years old so I seek some up to date guidance.

uv set up

pip install uv
uv .venv --python 3.11
.venv\Scripts\activate

FileGDB set up

# Installed Visual Studio 2022
# install gdal
uv add https://github.com/cgohlke/geospatial-wheels/releases/download/v2025.1.20/GDAL-3.10.1-cp311-cp311-win_amd64.whl
# Download ESRI SDK API (the link in gdal documentation is broken)
# https://github.com/Esri/file-geodatabase-api/blob/master/FileGDB_API_1.5.3/FileGDB_API_VS2022.zip
# FileGDBAPID.dll, Esri.FileGDBAPI.dll, FileGDBAPI.dll --> .venv/Lib/site-packages/osgeo
# Update __init__.py os.environ['GDAL_DRIVER_PATH']
try:
 _here = os.path.dirname(__file__)
 ...
 if 'GDAL_DRIVER_PATH' not in os.environ:
 os.environ['GDAL_DRIVER_PATH'] = _here
 os.add_dll_directory(_here)
except Exception:
 pass

Test code

from osgeo import ogr
from osgeo import gdal
driver_count = gdal.GetDriverCount()
# List all drivers
for i in range(driver_count):
 driver = gdal.GetDriver(i)
 if "FileGDB" in driver.ShortName:
 print(driver.ShortName)
driver = ogr.GetDriverByName("FileGDB")
print(driver)
gdb = driver.CreateDataSource("./my_gdb.gdb")

Results

Warning 1: Missing global # gdal: DRIVER_NAME declaration in ...\.venv\Lib\site-packages\osgeo\gdal_array.py
OpenFileGDB
None
Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "...\test.py", line 14, in <module>
 gdb = driver.CreateDataSource("./my_gdb.gdb")
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'CreateDataSource'

Answer 1

I assume those tutorials are old because they are no longer required. The OpenFileGDB driver is read/write and handles raster data (read-only) which FileGDB does not. From the driver documentation:

Write and update capabilities are supported since GDAL >= 3.6

The driver also supports raster layers since GDAL 3.7

So you can just use:

driver = ogr.GetDriverByName("OpenFileGDB") 
gdb = driver.CreateDataSource("./my_gdb.gdb")

• Binx: Wow, well that was anticlimatic. I must have read something wrong somewhere in the documentation. Didn't understand that OpenFileGDB was a replacement for FileGDB. Thank you!
• Binx: You have "driver supports raster layers since GDAL 3.7". That is only read support correct? I don't think writing rasters has been supported yet.
• user2856: Yes rasters are read only currently gdal.org/en/stable/drivers/raster/…. I only noted it as FileGDB API and driver doesn't support rasters at all.