[Mapserver-users] Why Mapserver GML does not validate with XMLSpy

[Bart van den Eijnden]

Hi Daniel,

the guys at Altova (XMLSpy) seem to have a different opinion on this 
subject, see:

http://www.altova.com/forum/forums/forum.asp?forumid=28&page=1&select=4262#xx4262xx

-----------------------
Excerpt from the forum:
-----------------------
Hello Bart,

When I previously said that it was a 'bad' URL I meant that when I 
requested it with a web client the server responded with an HTTP error 
code. This seems to be working now.

Your instance document contains the escaped ampersand:
&

...otherwise it would not be valid - the unescaped ampersand not being 
allowed in this context:

http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-xml/#syntax

...so this is the URL:
http://www.vz.geodan.nl:1112/cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=/ms4w_20/apps/general/map/gemeentes.map&SERVICE=WFS&VERSION=1.0.0&REQUEST=DescribeFeatureType&TYPENAME=Gemeentes


...being sent to the server. This is a perfectly valid construction:

http://www.biglist.com/lists/xsl-list/archives/200104/msg01061.html

...that your CGI application or web server seems to be having problems 
handling correctly.

I hope this helps.

Best regards,

Paul
-----------------------

Best regards,
Bart

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 00:18:17 -0400, Daniel Morissette 
<dmorissette at dmsolutions.ca> wrote:

> bartvde at xs4all.nl wrote:
>> Hi list,
>>
>> there has been discussion recently about Mapserver GML not validating 
>> with
>> XMLSpy.
>>
>> A colleague of mine found the cause for this, and this is related to an
>> issue I reported one and a half week ago on the list.
>>
>> There are two issues:
>> 1) the GML version of Mapserver (2.1.1) and WFS (2.1.2) differ, but 
>> Assefa
>> already fixed this in CVS
>> 2) Mapserver does not respond properly to URL encoded HTTP GET requests,
>> which is what XMLSpy is sending.
>>
>> So basically, XMLSpy asks for:
>> http://www.vz.geodan.nl:1112/cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=/ms4w_20/apps/general/map/gemeentes.map&SERVICE=WFS&VERSION=1.0.0&REQUEST=DescribeFeatureType&TYPENAME=Gemeentes
>>
>
> Bart,
>
> As I also wrote in the bug report, I don't think the above URL is a 
> valid CGI request. It is up to the client (XMLSpy in this case) to 
> decode the "&" and turn them into "&" chars in the QUERY_STRING 
> before calling the remote server. This is not specific to MapServer, 
> that's the way CGI's work in general.
>
> Perhaps the problem is that the schema URL should not be encoded in the 
> XML?  I didn't think that was the case since I assumed that all string 
> parameter values in an XML document needed to be encoded... perhaps that 
> doesn't apply to the XML headers?  If that's the case then perhaps you 
> can add that information to the bug report.
>
> Daniel



--