[Mapserver-users] potential problem with layer names containi ng spaces

[Daniel Morissette]

Tom Kralidis [Burlington] wrote:
> bartvde at xs4all.nl wrote:
>>
>>I have encountered a potential problem with layer names
>>containing spaces. This will lead to invalid GML responses 
>>when requesting GetFeatureInfo in the GML format.
>>
>>What would be a good solution to overcome this?
>>
> 
> 
> This can also be painful to parse for some who wish to process
> GetFeatureInfo responses.  
> 
> Suggest to abstract the GetFeatureInfo reponse construct to not include data
> as element names and / or attributes, yet values of said.
> 
> i.e.
> 
> <Layer name="Groningen kust vlakken 2002">
>  <Feature>
>  ...
>  </Feature>
> </Layer>
> 
> ..Tom
> 
> 


But this is not valid GML, is it?  We are talking about the GML response 
format.  Does GML (or WFS) provide a way to support spaces in feature 
type names?

> 
> 
>>>a. when parsing the mapfile make sure no spaces are contained
>>>in layer names (or is this too rigorous for applications not 
>>>using GML?)
>>>
>>>b. when generating the GML for GetFeatureInfo check the layer
>>>names or check if the generated GML is valid and well-formed? 
>>>If the GML is not valid or not well-formed it is better to 
>>>generate a WMS Exception I guess than generating invalid GML.
>>>


Replacing spaces with underscores in the layer names as we start 
processing a WMS request might work but could cause confusion too. 
Another important note is that this change would have to apply to the 
GetCapabilities and GetMap requests as well.

Perhaps we should just add a test and a <!-- WARNING --> comment in the 
Capabilities if any layer contains spaces (the same way we produce 
warnings for other potential problems).  Then it's up to the person 
setting up the server to make sure their layer names don't contain spaces.

I think the WARNING would be the best route.  If you agree then please 
file a bug and I can easily add this in version 4.1

Daniel
-- 
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  Daniel Morissette               morissette at dmsolutions.ca
  DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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