Getting provider name of layer using PyQGIS

Question

In QGIS 3.16.5-Hannover, with PyQGIS I want to get the provider name of a selected layer. I need to know if it's an ESRI Shapefile layer or a PostGIS layer for example.

I don't see how to get this value in QgsProviderRegistry, or in QgsVectorDataProvider.

I try this:

# Get the name of a selected layer from a combo box
selectedLayerName = self.mMapLayerComboBox.currentText()
layer = QgsProject.instance().mapLayersByName(selectedLayerName)[0]

# Could it be something like this ?
layerProvider = layer.getProvider()

Is there a way with PyQGIS to know the provider of a selected vector layer? (like metadata information)

Answer 1

To get the information (storage) which you have highlighted in your screenshot you could use:

selectedLayerName = self.mMapLayerComboBox.currentText()
layer = QgsProject.instance().mapLayersByName(selectedLayerName)[0]
layerProvider = layer.dataProvider()
layerStorage = layerProvider.storageType()
print(layerStorage)

The storageType() method, according to the docs:

Returns the permanent storage type for this layer as a friendly name.

So you will get values like:

"GPKG"

"ESRI Shapefile"

"MapInfo File"

Answer 2

For the selected Layer in the Layer tree:

my_lyr = iface.activeLayer()

For your combo-Box:

my_lyr = mMapLayerComboBox.currentLayer()

Get the data provider:

dp = my_lyr.dataProvider()

Get the provider name:

name = dp.name()

Will return something like ogr, wms, postgres, ...

For deeper insights I recommend the data source specification:

uri = dp.uri()

Will give you e.g.

<QgsDataSourceUri: crs='EPSG:3857&format&type=xyz&url=http://tile.openstreetmap.org/%7Bz%7D/%7Bx%7D/%7By%7D.png&zmax=19&zmin=0'> (wms)

or

<QgsDataSourceUri: /home/jxxxxx/Dokumente/QGIS/.../.../my_document.ods|layername='my layer'> (ogr)

Answer 3

From the layer instance, you can get the provider type with:

layer.providerType()