Loading a map from a project

This recipe demonstrates how to load a project from a .qgs XML file. Loading a project will set up the map and project settings for a previously saved project within QGIS.

Getting ready

You will need to complete the previous recipe, Saving a map to a project, so that you have a project named myProject.qgs in your qgis_data folder.

How to do it...

For this recipe, you need to set up a file object, set a resource path, and then read the file object that references the project file. To do this, you need to perform the following steps:

1. First, we import the core Qt library for the file object:

   from PyQt4.QtCore import *
   

2. Next, we initiate the file object with the path to the project file:

   f = QFileInfo("/Users/joellawhead/qgis_data/myProject.qgs")
   

3. Now, we access the project object:

   p = QgsProject.instance()
   

4. Then, we set the resource path for QGIS to find data and other files, in case the project was saved with relative paths instead of absolute paths:

   p.readPath...