[mapserver-dev] numeric values in string columns

[bartvde at osgis.nl]

Yeah it would be great to have this, but I am sure this is the kind of
thing that requires funding. Anybody have an idea how much approximately?

Btw is Mapserver getting any OsGeo sponsorship money that could be applied
to these kind of tasks?

Best regards,
Bart

>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: mapserver-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org
>> [mailto:mapserver-dev-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] On Behalf Of
>> Yewondwossen Assefa
>> Sent: Monday, November 10, 2008 9:14 AM
>> To: Bart van den Eijnden (OSGIS)
>> Cc: mapserver-dev at lists.osgeo.org; Daniel Morissette
>> Subject: Re: [mapserver-dev] numeric values in string columns
>>
>>
>> Daniel Morissette wrote:
>> > bartvde at osgis.nl wrote:
>> >> Hi list,
>> >>
>> >> we've got a dataset with road numbers, the column in ArcSDE is a
>> >> character type. But the values can look like numbers (002 etc.) as
>> >> well as strings (e.g. N329).
>> >>
>> >> Mapserver will fail in this case, seeing it will check the
>> value for
>> >> determining the type of column (mapogcfilter.c).
>> >>
>> >> Will this be easy to fix, or will it require that Mapserver stores
>> >> column types internally?
>> >>
>> >
>> > I'll let Assefa answer about mapogcfilter.c specifically,
>> but I think
>> > it would be a good thing to maintain the original column type.
>> >
>> > I started working on support for column types in MapServer
>> a few years
>> > ago but never finished it... I think that may even have
>> been for WFS...
>> > I checked this morning and unfortunately I could not find that code
>> > anywhere.
>> >
>> > Daniel
>>
>>
>>
>> Ideally if the layer's column type is available with the
>> layer object, we could use that. Not sure when/if that will
>> be available.
>> The other alternative is to use metadata on the layer (the
>> same way we use it now for attribute name aliases). We could
>> have <item_name>_type and have that value used  to build the
>> expressions. I am willing to add the metatadata support if
>> you think this is appropriate.
>>
>
> This would also be useful for WFS DescribeFeatureType output, as the
> schema response can map to the actual datatypes (and output, say,
> xs:integer, xs:datetime, etc.) if specified.
>
> ..Tom
>
>