element.md

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Element

Several services, amongst them the OSMPythonTools.api and OSMPythonTools.overpass return OSM objects, which are represented by an instance of the class Element, which provides functions to access its properties.

Accessing general properties

Consider the following example of a query to the OSM Api:

from OSMPythonTools.api import Api
api = Api()
busStop = api.query('node/42467507')

The result, that is, busStop, is an element, whose properties can easily be access as follows:

busStop.id()
# 42467507
busStop.type()
# 'node'
busStop.lat()
# 40.701424
busStop.lon()
# -73.943064

Accessing tags

The tags can be accessed as a python dictionary:

busStop.tags()
# {'asset_ref': '2030', 'highway': 'bus_stop', 'location': 'Broadway / Thornton Street', 'name': 'Broadway / Thornton Street', 'route_ref': 'B46;B46-LTD'}

The value of a single tag can be accessed like follows:

busStop.tag('highway')
# 'bus_stop'

Accessing nodes and members

Ways incorporate nodes, and relations other elements, called members. Nodes of a way can easily be accessed:

way = api.query('way/108402486')
way.nodes()
# [<OSMPythonTools.api.ApiResult object at 0x104c06940>, <OSMPythonTools.api.ApiResult object at 0x104c2d8d0>, ...
way.nodes()[0].id()
# 1243967857

The members of a relation can also easily be accessed:

relation = api.query('relation/1539714')
relation.members()
# [<OSMPythonTools.api.ApiResult object at 0x104c20240>, <OSMPythonTools.api.ApiResult object at 0x104c2db38>, ...
relation.members()[0].id()
# 108402486