Exporting layer to shapefile using PyQGIS?

Question

I´m using python in QGIS 2.2 and struggling with an error trying this:

# create layer from text
_vlayer = QgsVectorLayer(_ur1, "raw", "delimitedtext")

works fine but:

# export layer to shape
_writer = QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat\
(_vlayer,"hoppla.shp","utf-8",None,"ESRI Shapefile")

... ends up wiht error code "3" - according to documentation:"ErrCreateLayer".

Answer 1

It's all about user rights.

Just changed to a directory I'm allowed to write, everything works fine.

_writer = QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat(_vlayer,r"C:/Users/myName/xx/hoppla.shp","utf-8",None,"ESRI Shapefile")

Answer 2

I had the same problem and figured out, that there seems to be a bug in the class QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat

I was pretty sure that I had permission for the folder and in my case this did NOT work anyway: QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat\ (layer,"C:\Users\Myname\Desktop\test\hoppla.shp","utf-8",None,"ESRI Shapefile") although the folder 'test' existed on my desktop and had all rights.

Now the most absurd thing to try was to make "test" upper case --> "Test" QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat\ (layer,"C:\Users\Myname\Desktop\Test\hoppla.shp","utf-8",None,"ESRI Shapefile") and now it worked! Further I tried to check the folders before the last folder where the file was to be saved in for case sensitivity and if I changed (in this code example) 'Desktop' to lower case ('desktop') it worked!

On the other hand something like QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat(temp_layer, "C:\Users\Myname\desktop\test1\test2\wasneues4.shp", "utf-8", None, "ESRI Shapefile") would NOT work, but QgsVectorFileWriter.writeAsVectorFormat(temp_layer, "C:\Users\Myname\desktop\Test1\Test2\wasneues4.shp", "utf-8", None, "ESRI Shapefile") with both T's upper case works! Very weird...

Hopefully this was not driving too many people crazy ^^ I will report this bug.

My QGis Version: 2.8.2, so not the latest.