[Qgis-developer] WFS-T

[Marco Hugentobler]

Hi all

Recently, I've been busy implementing support for WFS editing (WFS-T). The 
version in svn trunk now supports the transactional operations 'insert', 
'update' and 'delete'. Feature locking is currently not supported.

The use of WFS editing is similar to other datasources: make layer editable, 
do changes, commit or revert. On commit, the WFS provider sends the XML 
messages for insert/ update/ delete.

There is however an additional difficulty: sometimes the datastore behind the 
WFS has restrictions on inserting new features (e.g. database constraints). So 
when receiving errors on insertion of features to the WFS, it is important to 
carefully read the error message from the server. Unfortunately, these 
messages are sometimes not really informative.

I've tested the client with a geoserver instance and a tinyows instance (but 
with disabled schema check for tinyows). Unfortunately, servers to test WFS-T 
are very rare. If you use another product (or encounter a bug with those two 
mentioned servers) and have a public accessible instance, let me know.

Finally, I'd like to thank NaviGo (www.gonavigo.ca) for funding the 
development of the WFS-T extension. With the support of the GPS live tracking 
and WFS-T, NaviGo provides great help in bringing QGIS to the state-of-the-art 
in collecting data.


Regards,
Marco


-- 
Dr. Marco Hugentobler
Sourcepole - Linux & Open Source Solutions
Webereistr. 66, CH-8134 Adliswil, Switzerland
marco.hugentobler at sourcepole.ch http://www.sourcepole.ch
Technical Advisor QGIS Project Steering Committee