[GIS] Select by attributes within the fiona Python module

fields-attributesfionapythonshapefile

Is it possible to select polygons from a shapefile based upon their attributes using the Fiona Python module? I can't seem to find anything in the docs, but it seems like a strange thing not to be included in the module.

All I can think of at the moment is iterating through all the polygons, doing the calculations I want to do, and then storing the data in a database, or some other data structure, and then running my SELECT query over that.

Alternatively if there is another Python module that will do this easily then that would be great to know about.

Best Answer

Sure.

import fiona

with fiona.open("file.shp") as src:
    filtered = filter(lambda f: f['properties']['foo']=='bar', src)

It's documented at https://fiona.readthedocs.io/en/latest/manual.html#slicing-and-masking-iterators

The thing is: shapefiles don't have standard and interoperable attribute indexes and so you have to loop over all features and test them no matter what. If you want high performing indexes, load your shapefiles into a relational database and create all the indexes you need.

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