I have a feature layer and a buffer of that feature layer and am trying to cut out the features from the buffers. This would be trivial, except that the buffers overlay multiple features, so I need to select each feature from the two layers individually, use the difference tool to export them to individual layers, and finally merge them all at the end.
I've written a Python script to automate the selection/difference tool part of this but it seems to be using all features from the layers, and not only the selected ones. I have tested that the code for the selection is working so I believe it is the call of the difference tool that is not working as expected. I understood from the documentation that it should only use the selected features, but perhaps either my understanding or my code is wrong.
I am using QGIS 2.18.3.
import processing
buffer_layer = QgsVectorLayer("buffer.shp", "buffer_layer", "ogr")
patch_layer = QgsVectorLayer("patches.shp", "patch_layer", "ogr")
for feature in buffer_layer.getFeatures():
buffer_layer.setSelectedFeatures([feature.id()])
site_name = feature.attributes()[0]
patch_list = []
for patch in patch_layer.getFeatures():
if patch.attributes()[1] == site_name:
patch_list.append(patch.id())
patch_layer.setSelectedFeatures(patch_list)
processing.runalg("qgis:difference",buffer_layer,patch_layer,0,"output_%s.shp" % site_name)
buffer_layer.selectedFeatures()andpatch_layer.selectedFeatures()to be sure. – DIV Mar 1 '17 at 15:20