Getting to know the Python Console

The most direct way to interact with the QGIS API (short for Application Programming Interface) is through the Python Console, which can be opened by going to Plugins | Python Console. As you can see in the following screenshot, the Python Console is displayed within a new panel below the map:

Our access point for interaction with the application, project, and data is the iface object. To get a list of all the functions available for iface, type help(iface). Alternatively, this information is available online in the API documentation at http://qgis.org/api/classQgisInterface.html.

Loading and exploring datasets

One of the first things we will want to do is to load some data. For example, to load a vector layer, we use the addVectorLayer() function of iface:

v_layer = iface.addVectorLayer('C:/Users/anita/Documents/Geodata/qgis_sample_data/shapefiles/airports.shp','airports','ogr')

When we execute this command, airports.shp will be loaded using the ogr driver...