4

The context

I have a Geopackage file opened in QGIS. It was created by importing a CSV file. However, when importing, something regarding encoding went wrong: I have several special characters like Umlauts (Ä, Ö, Ü) that are not correctly recognized (like Ä for Ä). A possibility would be to fix this in the innitial CSV file and reimport. However, I already made several changes in the attributes, so I don't want to repeat the whole work.

The question

How can I search/replace all string fields in the attribute table to replace the relevant characters?

What I tried

What works is doing it on a filed-per-field basis, using Field calculator with this expression:

replace("fieldname", '[character to be replaces]', '[replace with character]')

As I have a lot of fields, I would like to to it for all fields at once. Exporting the attributes as CSV, changing it there and reimport is a risk as I don't want to create new confusions with delimiters, special characters etc. The data is assembled from different sources and this is no 100% consistent, so I already spent a lot of time harmonizing the data. Reimport a CSV is always tricky to be sure to have all fields in the right field data formats, defining the correct delimiters etc.

Improve this question
2
  • Do you have a list of all characters to replace?
    – BERA
    Apr 17, 2022 at 13:42
  • Yes, I do havecsuch a list
    – Babel
    Apr 17, 2022 at 13:59

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

If you dont mind using a little PyQGIS. As usual when working with edit(layer) code, make a backup before experimenting.

layer = iface.activeLayer()
# Define replacements: First one is the character to replace and second one to be replaced by
replacements = {
    "a": "B",
    "Ä": "Ä`",
    "8%": "ü",
    "hello":"goodbye"
    }
with edit(layer):
    for feat in layer.getFeatures():
        for field in feat.fields():
            if field.type() == 10: # if string
                fieldvalue = feat[field.name()]
                for k,v in replacements.items():
                    fieldvalue = fieldvalue.replace(k,v)
                layer.changeAttributeValue(feat.id(), layer.fields().indexOf(field.name()), fieldvalue) # why isnt there a field.index() method????
Improve this answer
4

Using the refactor fields algorithm and the expression:

replace("field1", map('ò','o','H','h','w','W','à','a','ì','i','ee','EE'))

changing the attribute name field1,field2 etc ... and adjusting the characters to find and replace.

https://docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/user_manual/expressions/functions_list.html?highlight=list%20expression#replace

enter image description here

Improve this answer
4
  • But if you have more attributes, like 20, it could be long to refactor all of them…
    – katagena
    Apr 17, 2022 at 16:10
  • 1
    the 20 attributes would appear automatically, you just need to copy and paste the same expression 20 times!
    – pigreco
    Apr 17, 2022 at 16:43
  • And change field1, field2, etc in each formulas!
    – katagena
    Apr 17, 2022 at 17:00
  • This is possible using attributes(): docs.qgis.org/3.22/en/docs/user_manual/expressions/…
    – Babel
    Apr 17, 2022 at 18:57

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service and acknowledge that you have read and understand our privacy policy and code of conduct.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.