Is there a call in pyqgis that clips a layer similarly to the Geoprocessing Tool?

Question

I've loaded two shape files using pyqgis like so:

data_layer = QgsVectorLayer("lines.shp", "highways", "ogr")
clip_layer = QgsVectorLayer("polygon.shp", "highways", "ogr")

As the names of the source files suggest one of the files consists of line geometry data and the other of polygon data. I'd like to do the GUI operation Vector->Geoprocessing Tools->Clip operation in code. Something like: new_layer = QgsClip(clip_layer, data_layer)

I notice QgsClipper in the API docs but that only does rectangular clipping as far as I can see.

Is there a function that does what I want?

Answer 1

If you want to use the QGIS algorithms you can use de processing module (Using processing algorithms from the console)

import processing
processing.alglist("clip")
Clip------------------------------------------------->qgis:clip
Clip Multiple Rasters-------------------------------->script:clipmultiplerasters
Clip grid with polygon------------------------------->saga:clipgridwithpolygon
Clip points with polygons---------------------------->saga:clippointswithpolygons
Clip raster by extent-------------------------------->gdalogr:cliprasterbyextent
Clip raster by mask layer---------------------------->gdalogr:cliprasterbymasklayer
Clip vectors by extent------------------------------->gdalogr:clipvectorsbyextent
Clip vectors by polygon------------------------------>gdalogr:clipvectorsbypolygon

The one you were looking for is qgis:clip

processing.alghelp("qgis:clip")
ALGORITHM: Clip
   INPUT <ParameterVector>
   OVERLAY <ParameterVector>
   OUTPUT <OutputVector>

This command is illustrated in many answers in GIS SE -> Is there a way to call the clip function in pyQGIS from the python console?

Answer 2

Next code:

mapcanvas = iface.mapCanvas()

layers = mapcanvas.layers()

feats1 = [ feature for feature in layers[0].getFeatures() ]

feats2 = [ feature for feature in layers[1].getFeatures() ]

n_feats1 = len(feats1)
n_feats2 = len(feats2)

#comprehension list
geom3 = [ feats1[i].geometry().intersection(feats2[j].geometry()).exportToWkt()
          for i in range(n_feats1)
          for j in range(n_feats2)
          if feats1[i].geometry().intersects(feats2[j].geometry()) ]

for item in geom3:
    print item

it was ran at the Python Console for the two vector layers (line and polygon6 equivalents to your data_layer and clip_layer; respectively) of following image:

and I got this:

Geometry geom3 (lines that intersect the polygon) is in WKT notation and it was visualized with the QuickWKT plugin.