When creating script tools, or just running a script, there can be times that extracting field information from a feature class (or shapefile) is necessary. This information can include field names and aliases, field type and length, scale, domains, or subtypes. These are all properties available through the arcpy.ListFields method. We'll explore the many properties, how to extract them, and how to use them in a script.

By organizing the ArcPy methods into a function, the data is organized in a form that we prefer, instead of relying on the default organization used by the designers of ArcPy. It's important to remember that scripts you create should reflect your needs, and creating these function wrappers is one step forward towards polishing the raw ArcPy tools to work in your workflows.