Extract a record by name in pyshp?

Question

I would like to extract a named subset of the text records from a shapefile using Python/pyshp. Is there a clean/efficient way to do this?

Ideally I'd like to use dictionary-like access such as:

import shapefile
sf = shapefile.Reader("MyFile.shp")
data = sf.record['desired_record_name']

But of course this doesn't work. So far my solution is the brute force approach of looping over all entries:

import shapefile
sf = shapefile.Reader("MyFile.shp")
for r in sf.iterRecords():
    if r[0]=='desired_record_name':
        data = r
        break

But this leaves a lot to be desired, especially for large/many files.

Note: Although I like the simplicity of pyshp, I am not tied to it, so other free & open-source solutions using python are also of interest.

Answer 1

You can easily create a dictionary of attributes:

import shapefile
sf = shapefile.Reader('MyFile.shp')
# name of fields
fields = sf.fields[1:] 
field_names = [field[0] for field in fields] 
# construction of a dctionary field_name:value  
for r in sf.shapeRecords():  
     atr = dict(zip(field_names, r.record))  

  As a result:

{'field1': 'value1', 'field2': 'value2', ...,  'fieldn': 'valuen'}

and

if atr['field1'] == value:
       print atr
       action

With large/many files, you can use a generator:

def records(filename):  
    # generator 
    reader = shapefile.Reader(filename)  
    fields = reader.fields[1:]  
    field_names = [field[0] for field in fields]  
    for sr in reader.shapeRecords():   
        yield dict(zip(field_names, sr.record)) 
rec = records('MyFile.shp')
rec.next()
{'field1': 'value1', 'field2': 'value2', ...,  'fieldn': 'valuen'}
# or
for rec in records('MyFile.shp')
     if rec['field1'] == value:
         data = rec

Sean Gillies has proposed the The geo_interface protocol, an interface that describes a spatial object using a GeoJSON like structure (dictionaries). Many modules implement this protocol (see Python Geo_interface applications), including pyshp, since version 1.1.7:

With one of my examples:

for r in sf.shapeRecords():  
   atr = dict(zip(field_names, r.record))  
   geom = r.shape.__geo_interface__ 
   print dict(geometry=geom,properties=atr)  
   {'geometry': {'type': 'Point', 'coordinates': (161821.09375, 79076.0703125)}, 'properties': {'DIP_DIR': 120, 'STRATI_TYP': 1, 'DIP': 30}}

You can also use Fiona or osgeo.ogr in the same way.

Answer 2

Here is how you might use OGR's Python bindings to do this:

from osgeo import ogr
ds = ogr.Open(r"path_to\shapefile.shp")
lyr = ds.GetLayer()

# Apply a SQL WHERE Clause
lyr.SetAttributeFilter("FIELD = 'Value'")

# Loop over features
for feature in lyr:
    # do stuff with features selected by attribute filter

SetAttributeFilter lets you apply a SQL WHERE clause, which filters the rows returned or affected by layer methods.

Answer 3

Good news... The PyShp library has been updated to include this exact feature.

The newest version (2.0) is not available through PyPI or pip yet, but I would expect that to change soon.

Source: https://github.com/GeospatialPython/pyshp#major-changes

Reading shapefiles is now more convenient:

• More convenient accessing of Record values as attributes. [@philippkraft]