Check out a Page Layout to update programatically

Question

In a FeatureActivated event, I am trying to update the associated content type for a Page Layout. I am running in to issues though with the associated ASPX page not being checked out. Here's my code:

public override void FeatureActivated(SPFeatureReceiverProperties properties)
{
    SPSite site = (SPSite)properties.Feature.Parent;
    if (PublishingSite.IsPublishingSite(site))
    {
        PublishingSite pubSite = new PublishingSite(site);

        SPContentType ct = site.RootWeb.ContentTypes["Custom Page"];

        string layoutURL = site.ServerRelativeUrl + "_catalogs/masterpage/" + pageLayoutName;
        PageLayout layout = pubSite.PageLayouts[layoutURL];
        layout.AssociatedContentType = ct;
        layout.Update();
    }
}

I've tried

PageLayout layout = pubSite.PageLayouts[layoutURL];
PublishingPage ppLayout = PublishingPage.GetPublishingPage(layout.ListItem);
ppLayout.CheckOut();
layout.AssociatedContentType = ct;
layout.Update();
ppLayout.CheckIn("Associated CT updated");

but this errors out with Error occurred in deployment step 'Activate Features': Invalid SPListItem. The SPListItem provided is not compatible with a Publishing Page.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

You need to do ListItem.CheckOut (for the list item represented by the page layout), rather than trying to check out the page object.