Working with Vector Data - Desktop GIS: Mapping the Planet with Open Source Tools - page 50

• We can open up the attribute table, sort it by name, and scroll
down until we find Cuzco.
• We can search for it.

These methods are in increasing order of efficiency. For small datasets,
browsing the attribute table until you find what you are looking for is
reasonable. When you get thousands of records, it can become a chore,
and searching becomes the way to go.

You can quickly search the table for a city by entering a search term
in the Search For box, selecting the field you want to search from the
drop-down list, and clicking the Search button. In our case, we want
to enter “Cuzco” as the term to search for, and we want to look in the
NAME field. The search will return both full or partial matches. When
searching, there are three options you can choose from:

• Select: Select the features that match.
• Select and Bring to Top: Select the features that match and pro-
mote them to the top of the attribute table display.
• Show Only Matching: Show just the features that match.

Which option you choose depends on the purpose for selecting the fea-
tures. If you just want to select them so you can zoom the map to the
selection set, then the first option is sufficient. If you want to view the
attributes of the selection set, then the second option is the one you
want. Of course, you could just scroll through the table and look for
highlighted rows, but promoting them to the top makes it quicker and
easier to browse the results.

Four tools at the top of the attribute dialog box can be used to manip-
ulate the selection set. Use the mouse to hover over each to learn its
function. The tools available are as follows:

• Remove Selection
• Move Selected to Top
• Invert Selection
• Copy Selected Rows to the Clipboard

If you copy the selection to the clipboard and paste into a text editor,
you get a comma-delimited list of the attributes in the selected rows,
complete with a header row containing the field names. Doing this for
Cuzco and pasting it, we get the following:

wkt_geom,NAME,COUNTRY,POPULATION,CAPITAL
POINT(-71.860001 -13.600000),Cuzco,Peru,

184550,N