WMS server time tests and issues

[Kralidis,Tom [Burlington]]

Hi,

I've been testing this out on latest CVS.  Observations:

- OS: FC2
Linux devgeo.cciw.ca 2.6.5-1.358smp #1 SMP Sat May 8 09:25:36 EDT 2004
i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
- httpd: Apache 2.0.49

I constructed a dummy .shp/.shx/.dbf with 4 columns 3 records with a
timefield.

Here's a dump of what the shapefile is:

stid | lat          | lon        | obsdate
----------------------------------------------
tom  | 45.412766    | -71.920082 | 2004-10-12
bob  | 45.399400    | -75.704200 | 2003-09-30
joe  | 55.399400    | -95.704200 | 2002-03-17


...and here's the time defines in LAYER/METADATA in mapfile:

   "wms_timeextent" "2002-03-17/2004-10-12"
   "wms_timedefault" "2003-09-30"
   "wms_timeitem" "obsdate"


...and here's my tests:

Single value:

http://devgeo.cciw.ca/cgi-bin/mapserv/ecows?version=1.1.1&service=WMS&re
quest=GetMap&layers=obs&format=image/gif&srs=EPSG:4326&transparent=TRUE&
exceptions=application%2Fvnd.ogc.se_inimage&bbox=-140.243500,28.606653,-
51.243500,81.998653&width=500&height=300&time=2004-10-12-T00:00:00&style
s=default

Result: no problem, as expected

Multple value:

http://devgeo.cciw.ca/cgi-bin/mapserv/ecows?version=1.1.1&service=WMS&re
quest=GetMap&layers=obs&format=image/gif&srs=EPSG:4326&transparent=TRUE&
exceptions=application%2Fvnd.ogc.se_inimage&bbox=-140.243500,28.606653,-
51.243500,81.998653&width=500&height=300&time=2004-10-12-T00:00:00,2003-
09-30-T00:00:00&styles=default

Result: no problem, as expected

Single range:

http://devgeo.cciw.ca/cgi-bin/mapserv/ecows?version=1.1.1&service=WMS&re
quest=GetMap&layers=obs&format=image/gif&srs=EPSG:4326&transparent=TRUE&
exceptions=application%2Fvnd.ogc.se_inimage&bbox=-140.243500,28.606653,-
51.243500,81.998653&width=500&height=300&time=2002-03-17-T00:00:00/2004-
10-12-T00:00:00&styles=default


Result: when the start time or end time is out of range of the default.
For example, if you change the start year to 2001, only one point shows
up:

http://devgeo.cciw.ca/cgi-bin/mapserv/ecows?version=1.1.1&service=WMS&re
quest=GetMap&layers=obs&format=image/gif&srs=EPSG:4326&transparent=TRUE&
exceptions=application%2Fvnd.ogc.se_inimage&bbox=-140.243500,28.606653,-
51.243500,81.998653&width=500&height=300&time=2001-03-17-T00:00:00/2004-
10-12-T00:00:00&styles=default

...so it looks like the default is returned when the range given is
outside the range defined in "wms_timeextent".

Is this the expected behaviour?  As a WMS client, I would expect that
temporal queries would return everything inside two given dates, just
like a spatial query does.

..Tom