Routines (alphabetical) > Object Classes > File Format Object Classes > IDLffShape::GetEntity

# IDLffShape::GetEntity

The IDLffShape::GetEntity function method returns the entities you specify from a Shapefile.

## Syntax

Result = Obj->[IDLffShape::]GetEntity([Index] [, /ALL] [, /ATTRIBUTES])

## Return Value

Returns a type {IDL_SHAPE_ENTITY} structure array. For more information on the structure, see Entities.

Note: Since entities cannot be modified in a Shapefile, an entity is read directly from the Shapefile each time you use the IDLffShape::GetEntity method even if you have already read that entity. If you modify the structure array returned by this method for a given entity and then use IDLffShape::GetEntity on that same entity, the modified data will NOT be returned, the data that is actually written in the file is returned.

## Arguments

### Index

A scalar or array of longs specifying the entities for which you want to retrieve with 0 being the first entity in the Shapefile. If the ALL keyword is set, this argument is not required. If you do not specify any entities and the ALL keyword is not set, the first entity (0) is returned.

## Keywords

### ALL

Set this keyword to retrieve all entities from the Shapefile. If this keyword is set, the Index argument is not required.

### ATTRIBUTES

Set this keyword to return the attributes in the entity structure. If not set, the ATTRIBUTES tag in the entity structure will be a null IDL pointer.

## Examples

In the following example, all of the entities from the `states.shp` Shapefile are read:

PRO ex_shapefile

; Open the states Shapefile in the examples directory.

myshape=OBJ_NEW('IDLffShape', FILEPATH('states.shp', $

SUBDIR=['examples', 'data']))

; Get the number of entities so we can parse through them.

myshape->GetProperty, N_ENTITIES=num_ent

; Read all the entities. The entity array in a Shapefile

; starts with index zero (0).

FOR x=0, (num_ent-1) DO BEGIN

; Read the entity x

ent = myshape->GetEntity(x)

; Clean-up of pointers

myshape->DestroyEntity, ent

ENDFOR

; Close the Shapefile.

OBJ_DESTROY, myshape

END

## Version History

5.4 | Introduced