Introduction¶

PYQGIS_STARTUP environment variable¶

You can run Python code just before QGIS initialization completes by setting the PYQGIS_STARTUP environment variable to the path of an existing Python file.

This method is something you will probably rarely need, but worth mentioning here because it is one of the several ways to run Python code within QGIS and because this code will run before QGIS initialization is complete. This method is very useful for cleaning sys.path, which may have undesireable paths, or for isolating/loading the initial environ without requiring a virt env, e.g. homebrew or MacPorts installs on Mac.

The startup.py file¶

Every time QGIS starts, the user’s Python home directory (usually: .qgis2/python) is searched for a file named startup.py, if that file exists, it is executed by the embedded Python interpreter.

Using PyQGIS in standalone scripts¶

To start a standalone script, initialize the QGIS resources at the beginning of the script similar to the following code:

from qgis.core import *

# supply path to qgis install location
QgsApplication.setPrefixPath("/path/to/qgis/installation", True)

# create a reference to the QgsApplication, setting the
# second argument to False disables the GUI
qgs = QgsApplication([], False)

# load providers
qgs.initQgis()

# Write your code here to load some layers, use processing algorithms, etc.

# When your script is complete, call exitQgis() to remove the provider and
# layer registries from memory
qgs.exitQgis()

We begin by importing the qgis.core module and then configuring the prefix path. The prefix path is the location where QGIS is installed on your system. It is configured in the script by calling the setPrefixPath method. The second argument of setPrefixPath is set to True, which controls whether the default paths are used.

The QGIS install path varies by platform; the easiest way to find it for your your system is to use the Python Console from within QGIS and look at the output from running QgsApplication.prefixPath().

After the prefix path is configured, we save a reference to QgsApplication in the variable qgs. The second argument is set to False, which indicates that we do not plan to use the GUI since we are writing a standalone script. With the QgsApplication configured, we load the QGIS data providers and layer registry by calling the qgs.initQgis() method. With QGIS initialized, we are ready to write the rest of the script. Finally, we wrap up by calling qgs.exitQgis() to remove the data providers and layer registry from memory.

Using PyQGIS in custom applications¶

The only difference between Using PyQGIS in standalone scripts and a custom PyQGIS application is the second argument when instantiating the QgsApplication. Pass True instead of False to indicate that we plan to use a GUI.

from qgis.core import *

# supply path to qgis install location
QgsApplication.setPrefixPath("/path/to/qgis/installation", True)

# create a reference to the QgsApplication
# setting the second argument to True enables the GUI, which we need to do
# since this is a custom application
qgs = QgsApplication([], True)

# load providers
qgs.initQgis()

# Write your code here to load some layers, use processing algorithms, etc.

# When your script is complete, call exitQgis() to remove the provider and
# layer registries from memory
qgs.exitQgis()

Now you can work with QGIS API — load layers and do some processing or fire up a GUI with a map canvas. The possibilities are endless :-)

Running Custom Applications¶

You will need to tell your system where to search for QGIS libraries and appropriate Python modules if they are not in a well-known location — otherwise Python will complain:

>>> import qgis.core
ImportError: No module named qgis.core

This can be fixed by setting the PYTHONPATH environment variable. In the following commands, qgispath should be replaced with your actual QGIS installation path:

• on Linux: export PYTHONPATH=/qgispath/share/qgis/python
• on Windows: set PYTHONPATH=c:\qgispath\python

The path to the PyQGIS modules is now known, however they depend on qgis_core and qgis_gui libraries (the Python modules serve only as wrappers). Path to these libraries is typically unknown for the operating system, so you get an import error again (the message might vary depending on the system):

>>> import qgis.core
ImportError: libqgis_core.so.1.5.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

Fix this by adding the directories where the QGIS libraries reside to search path of the dynamic linker:

• on Linux: export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/qgispath/lib
• on Windows: set PATH=C:\qgispath;%PATH%

These commands can be put into a bootstrap script that will take care of the startup. When deploying custom applications using PyQGIS, there are usually two possibilities:

• require user to install QGIS on his platform prior to installing your application. The application installer should look for default locations of QGIS libraries and allow user to set the path if not found. This approach has the advantage of being simpler, however it requires user to do more steps.
• package QGIS together with your application. Releasing the application may be more challenging and the package will be larger, but the user will be saved from the burden of downloading and installing additional pieces of software.

The two deployment models can be mixed - deploy standalone application on Windows and macOS, for Linux leave the installation of QGIS up to user and his package manager.