Duplicate fields in the same shapefile

Question

I am creating a project with QGIS 2.18 to be exported to QField. The Survey form is as follow (3 columns):

• Customer name - checked on site? - Comment
• Water meter number - checked on site? - Comment
• Type of water meter - checked on site? - Comment
• Tariff code - checked on site? - Comment
• Diameter - checked on site? - Comment
• etc. etc.

As one can sees, there will be several fields with the same properties ("checked on site" as form value relation, "comment" as a text).

---

Is it possible to duplicate some fields structure keeping the properties (widget, length, type, etc.) ?

Answer 1

I am afraid it's not possible. But you are lucky :D ! Today it's the first birthday of my son.

I made a script that do what you want. Hope this will help you or anyone else.

Have a look to this :

The script is under pull request state, but you can download it on my fork

or get it from this code :

from qgis.core import *
from qgis.gui import *
from qgis.utils import *
from PyQt4.QtCore import QVariant


##Duplicate Fied=name
##input_layer=vector
##field_to_duplicate=field input_layer
##fieldname_list=string 


layer = processing.getObject(input_layer)

pr = layer.dataProvider()

caps = pr.capabilities()

def refreshLayer():
    layer.setCacheImage( None )
    layer.dataProvider().forceReload()
    layer.triggerRepaint()
    iface.mapCanvas().refreshAllLayers()

fields = layer.pendingFields()


QVariantDict = {
    4 : QVariant.Int,
    1 : QVariant.Double,
    10 : QVariant.String,
    14 : QVariant.Date,
}

listFieldName = str(fieldname_list).split(';')

newFieldIndex = len(fields)
FieldIdx=0

for field in fields:
    if field.name() == field_to_duplicate:
        FieldIdx = fields.indexFromName(field.name()) 
        field_type = QVariantDict[field.type()]
        field_precision = field.precision()
        field_length = field.length()
        field_widget = layer.editorWidgetV2(FieldIdx)
        field_widgetConfig = layer.editorWidgetV2Config(FieldIdx)
        progress.setText("{},{},{},{}".format(str(field.name()),str(FieldIdx), str(field_widget), str(field_widgetConfig)))
    else:
        pass

for f in listFieldName:
    if f in fields:
        pass
    else :
        if caps & QgsVectorDataProvider.AddAttributes:
            modelProperties= QgsField(f, field_type, str(field_length), int(field_precision), QVariant.String )             
            res = pr.addAttributes([modelProperties])
            layer.updateFields()            
            layer.setEditorWidgetV2(newFieldIndex , field_widget)
            layer.setEditorWidgetV2Config(newFieldIndex , field_widgetConfig)
            newField_widget = layer.editorWidgetV2(newFieldIndex)
            newField_widgetConfig = layer.editorWidgetV2Config(newFieldIndex)
            progress.setText("{},{},{},{}".format(str(f),str(newFieldIndex), str(newField_widget), str(newField_widgetConfig)))
            newFieldIndex += 1


refreshLayer()

any improvement will be appreciate.