Copy attributes from existing shapefile to new shapefile (Python 2.7.13, GDAL)

Question

I am trying to copy a selection of features from a shapefile to a separate shapefile, but I am stuck with trying to set the attributes of the separate shapefile to be the same as that of the original shapefile. I first thought about creating a list of attributes with the ' Name', 'Type', 'Width' and 'Precision' of each attribute and than use that list to define the attributes of the new shapefile. But I am unsure how to go about doing this?

My code so far is just constructing a list of existing attributes and creating a new shapefile:

attributes = []
for i in range(layerDef.GetFieldCount()):
    fieldName = layerDef.GetFieldDefn(i).GetName()
    fieldTypeCode = layerDef.GetFieldDefn(i).GetType()
    fieldType = layerDef.GetFieldDefn(i).GetFieldTypeName(fieldTypeCode)
    fieldWidth = layerDef.GetFieldDefn(i).GetWidth()
    GetPrecision = layerDef.GetFieldDefn(i).GetPrecision()
    attributesList = fieldName, fieldType, fieldWidth, GetPrecision
    attributes.append(attributesList)

newShapefile = driver.CreateDataSource("BuildingsFilter.shp")
srs = osr.SpatialReference()
srs.ImportFromWkt(DataSrsWkt)
newLayer = newShapefile.CreateLayer("BuildingsFilter, srs, geom_type = layer.GetLayerDefn().GetGeomType())

Answer 1

1) With ogr, see Fast tip: Filtering features using OGR Python for example

from osgeo import ogr
from os import remove
in_file= "shapefileA.shp"
out_file = "shapefileB.shp"
in_ds = ogr.Open( in_file )
in_lyr = in_ds.GetLayerByIndex(0)
if exists(out_file):
    remove(out_file)
driver_name = "ESRI Shapefile"
drv = ogr.GetDriverByName( driver_name )
out_ds = drv.CreateDataSource( out_file )
proj = in_lyr.GetSpatialRef()
out_lyr = out_ds.CreateLayer(out_file.split(".")[0],proj, ogr.wkbPoint )
# copy the schema of the original shapefile to the destination shapefile
lyr_def = in_lyr.GetLayerDefn ()
for i in range(lyr_def.GetFieldCount()):
    out_lyr.CreateField ( lyr_def.GetFieldDefn(i) )

##Writing the features
for feat in selection:
    out_lyr.CreateFeature(feat)

2) But it is much easier with Fiona (another OGR binding, all is Python dictionaries, many examples in GIS SE)

with fiona.open(in_file) as input:
    # The output has the same schema
    output_schema = input.schema.copy()
    # write a new shapefile
    with fiona.open(out_file , 'w', 'ESRI Shapefile',output_schema, crs=input.crs) as output:
        for elem in selection: 
             output.write(elem)
             # or output.write({'properties': elem['properties'],'geometry': elem['geometry']})

3) And with GeoPandas (Fiona + pandas)

import geopandas as gpd
input = gpd.read_file(in_file)
# show 4 first shapefile rows
input.head(4)
   Type  dip  dip_direct                  geometry
0    N   47         181  POINT (256690.6459337267 96921.05796609906)
1    R   60         175  POINT (256597.9054505839 97529.26299508238)
2    N   35         184  POINT (243734.4769253579 97348.09553964049)
3    N   35         198  POINT (244092.4983253977 97736.31151558728)
# select rows by values
selection = input.loc[input['dip'] > 60]
selection.head(4)
     Type  dip  dip_direct                                     geometry
11    R   70         146  POINT (247583.3848651695 95987.67605138522)
47    N   70         115    POINT (254177.4866783266 92510.493128259)
52    N   70         340  POINT (255987.0044773231 93405.54662835856)
53    N   70         348  POINT (256084.0584713098 93213.59539580709)

# save the resulting shapefile
selection.to_file(out_file) 

Answer 2

fiona is queen of this task (docs here).

import fiona

with fiona.open('input.shp') as source:
    source_schema = source.schema
    source_driver = source.driver
    source_crs = source.crs
    print(source_schema) # attribute fields & geometry def as dict
    print(source_driver) # "ESRI Shapefile"
    print(source_crs) # coordinate system

    with fiona.open('output.shp', 'w',
                    driver=source_driver,
                    crs=source_crs,
                    schema=source_schema) as shpout:
        for feature in source:
            # if feature should be written:
            shpout.write(feature)