Changing attribute / splitting line based on crossing polygons

Question

A new day, a new puzzle, that's puzzling me.

I've drawn an image to represent my problem; I have what I consider my base layer, 1 Polygon layer with 4 independent polygons each with their own attributes to show, "colour"red, orange, green, blue

On a separate layer I have a line that I've drawn straight through from one side to the other side, crossing red, orange and blue a single line.

What I'm trying to do calculates the distance of the line that crosses red, orange and blue. Not sure the best way to do this if its to have the line split up each time it crosses red orange and blue and make loads of little lines and have an attribute that will refect the base layer.

Very lost!

Answer 1

That's what intersect is for. First input is your line, second the polygons, tada.

Your lines will be split at the polygon borders - but lack the parts outside the polygons. Any attributes of the polygons will be added to the respective line part.