[mapserver-dev] encodings

[Paul Ramsey]

Agree. Step one, a proposal that specifies the rules of the game. The
problem right now is the rules are pretty unclear. What is the
internal encoding for Mapserver? etc. Incidentally, making all
internal string handling UTF8 and then setting the MAP and LAYER flags
to indicate what the inputs are would be a nice touch.

P.

On Fri, May 15, 2009 at 3:18 AM, Daniel Morissette
<dmorissette at mapgears.com> wrote:
> Hi Thomas,
>
> I like your idea... +1 to start a RFC.
>
> Daniel
>
> Thomas Bonfort wrote:
>>
>> Hi devs,
>>
>> Mapserver currently has a hard time treating encodings. We have the
>> ENCODING keyword at the label level, and that works when displaying
>> labels, but not when treating datasources:
>> * (probably, not sure here) when sending request strings, eg to postgis
>> * when using class expressions, eg ("[nature]" == "Forêt"), if the
>> mapfile encoding doesn't match the data encoding.
>>
>> I think we could clean things up a bit:
>>
>> * add an ENCODING keyword at the map level, that specifies how the
>> mapfile is encoded on the filesystem (what would the default value be:
>> utf8, latin1, cpXXX ?)
>> * add an ENCODING keyword at the LAYER level, to specify the encoding
>> of the datasource. (the encoding at the label level would become
>> deprecated). The default would be to inherit from the mapfile
>> encoding.
>> * when doing expression tests, we'd iconv the strings before doing
>> regular char* comparisons if map->encoding != layer->encoding
>> * when passing query strings to postgis, map->encoding could be used
>> to specify PGCLIENTENCODING. Don't know if / how that can be adapted
>> to other drivers.
>>
>> Any better ideas for treating this?
>>
>> If there are no objections, I can write up a quick rfc for this.
>>
>> regards,
>>
>> thomas
>>
>>
>> www.camptocamp.com
>> +33 4 79 26 57 97
>> _______________________________________________
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>> mapserver-dev at lists.osgeo.org
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>
>
> --
> Daniel Morissette
> http://www.mapgears.com/
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