DataSource is a wrapper for the OGR Data Source object, which provides an interface for reading vector geometry data from many different file formats (including ESRI shapefiles). When instantiating a DataSource object, use the filename of a GDAL-supported data source. For example, a SHP file or a TIGER/Line file from the government. The ds_driver keyword is used internally when a ctypes pointer is passed in directly. Example: ds = DataSource('/home/foo/bar.shp') for layer in ds: for feature in layer: # Getting the geometry for the feature. g = feature.geom # Getting the 'description' field for the feature. desc = feature['description'] # We can also increment through all of the fields # attached to this feature. for field in feature: # Get the name of the field (e.g. 'description') nm = field.name # Get the type (integer) of the field, e.g. 0 => OFTInteger t = field.type # Returns the value the field; OFTIntegers return ints, # OFTReal returns floats, all else returns string. val = field.value