Before we dive too far into the coding, you need to understand some basic concepts of the ArcGIS REST API. You need to specifically know how to construct a URL and interpret the response that is returned.
All the resources and operations of the ArcGIS REST API are exposed through a hierarchy of endpoints, which we'll examine as we move through the course of this book. For now, let's examine the specific steps that you need to understand to submit a request to the API through Python. In this recipe, you will learn how to use the ArcGIS Server Services directory to construct URL requests.
We're going to use a publicly available ArcGIS Server instance to learn how to use the tools provided by the Services
directory to construct a URL request:
Open a web browser (preferably Google Chrome or Firefox).
Go to http://sampleserver1.arcgisonline.com/arcgis/rest/services:
Next, we need to determine the well-known endpoint. This represents...