QGIS atlas feature: Storing information from coverage layer in an atlas variable

Question

Using QGIS` atlas feature, how can I pass information from my coverage layer to the layer's rendering engine?

At the moment, I'm abusing the Page name in the Layout > Atlas tab like this:

"country_code" || '-' || "my_custom_field"

In the "Labels" section in my layers I can now access this information using the variable @atlas_pagename.

Lets assume I have this coverage layer:

country_code	my_custom_field
US	1.0
FR	2.0
LU	3.0

Now, @atlas_pagename has these values...

US-1.0
FR-2.0
LU-3.0

... and I can use the variable in my Data defined override settings using something like to_real(substr(@atlas_pagename,4)).

The problem with this approach is every time I want to access the value of my_custom_field, I have to parse the needed information. And I can't use the page name variable for its intended use anymore.

So, how can I set a variable in my atlas configuration with the value of a field in my coverage layer?

• Gabriel De Luca: Hi, your question is about how to define a new atlas variable, but can't you get the attribute of the atlas feature with attribute(@atlas_feature, 'my_custom_field')?
• z80crew: @GabrielDeLuca Yes and no. My question was how to access a field from the coverage layer. I somehow thought that I had to do some setup to access this data. From your comment I learned that I just can to use attribute(@atlas_feature, 'my_custom_field') in my Data defined override expressions. Case closed. (If you provide your comment as an answer I'm happy to accept it.)
• she_weeds: You don't even need to use attribute(), you can just directly reference the field name in any expressions (i.e. "my_custom_field") As a bonus, that's case insensitive unlike attribute()

Answer 1

There is no need to store the attributes of the coverage layer in an atlas variable, because a reference to the coverage feature of the current atlas page is stored in the @atlas_feature variable.

So you can call its attributes from any expression in the project, with the attribute() function, like:

attribute(@atlas_feature, 'my_custom_field')