Convert shapefile to GeoJSON whilst stripping and renaming fields

Question

I'm writing a Python script to convert shapefiles into GeoJSONs but I would like to remove many of the fields as they are redundant and rename the ones I am retaining.

Here's an extract of where I have got to so far.

ef convert_shape_to_geojson(indir, in_shape, in_projection):
    inShapefile = in_shape
    inDriver = ogr.GetDriverByName("ESRI Shapefile")
    inDataSource = inDriver.Open(inShapefile, 0)
    inLayer = inDataSource.GetLayer()


    outGeoSJON = 'output.geojson'
    outfile = os.path.join(indir, outGeoSJON)
    driver = ogr.GetDriverByName("GeoJSON")
    if os.path.exists(outfile):
        driver.DeleteDataSource(outfile)
    data_source = driver.CreateDataSource(outGeoSJON)

    srs = osr.SpatialReference()
    srs.ImportFromEPSG(in_projection)

    out_layer = data_source.CreateLayer(outGeoSJON.split(".", 0), srs, geom_type=ogr.wkbMultiPolygon)

I've created new shapefiles in the past with brand new fields like so:

field_parcel = ogr.FieldDefn("PARCEL",ogr.OFTString)
field_parcel.SetWidth(20)
out_layer.CreateField(field_parcel)
out_layer.CreateField(ogr.FieldDefn("X",ogr.OFTInteger))
out_layer.CreateField(ogr.FieldDefn("Y",ogr.OFTInteger))
out_layer.CreateField(ogr.FieldDefn("BUFFDIS",ogr.OFTReal))

But I have no clue at the moment how to take existing field definitions from a source file but renaming the fields whilst also carrying over the source attributes.

Is anyone able to help out or point me to some further reading?

Answer 1

So following on from user30184's suggestion. I've used ogr2ogr and subprocess in my script. Here's an extract:

convert_command = ['ogr2ogr',
                   '-f', 'GeoJSON',
                   '-sql',
                   'SELECT field_1 AS alias_1, field_4 AS alias_2 FROM layername',
                   '/home/converted.geojson',
                   '/home/layername.shp']

subprocess.check_call(convert_command)

This did everything I needed and it was quick to set up.

Thanks