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

[Paul Spencer]

I just tried this.  If I click the link (as it appears in my email 
client), the & are automagically translated to &.  Even when I copy 
the link, they are replaced.  If I revert the & to & in my browser's 
address bar, it does not work (same error message that Bart reported).

This is on WinXP using mozilla ... and on linux using Mozilla too

One note:  the link as written below will generate a ServiceException 
because the first & is not escaped and so MapServer will read the fact 
that it is the WFS service that is being invoked, and will generate a 
ServiceException for an incomplete request.  If the first & is encoded 
as & then you get the mapserv error message.

HTH

Paul

Bart van den Eijnden wrote:

> Hi Daniel,
> 
> what the XMLSpy people are saying is that using & in a URL to a CGI 
> is valid.
> 
> If I click on the link I do not get the schema back, I get a service 
> exception report that the version is missing. Or if I use & instead 
> of & even before the service=WFS name-value pair, I get the "mapserv(): 
> Web application error. No template provided." error. So mapserv CGI only 
> interprets name value pairs if they are separated by & instead of &.
> 
> Is this something Windows specific perhaps, you are probably on Linux 
> when clicking the URL in a browser? XMLSpy is on Windows as well ofcourse.
> 
> Best regards,
> Bart
> 
> On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 14:23:53 -0400, Daniel Morissette 
> <dmorissette at dmsolutions.ca> wrote:
> 
>> Bart van den Eijnden wrote:
>>
>>> 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 
>>>
>>
>>
>> Different opinion on what?  They wrote that the ampersand needs to be 
>> escaped in the instance document, which is exactly in line with what I 
>> wrote. I also added that the client needs to unescape the string 
>> *before* calling the server and they suggest that this is what is 
>> being done:
>>
>>>
>>> ...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.
>>>
>>
>> ... if I click on the URL above I see a XML schema as expected from a 
>> DescribeFeatureType response. So what's the problem exactly? What does 
>> he mean by "having problems handling correctly"?
>>
>> Perhaps I missed something obvious at the beginning? Is it that the 
>> schema that is returned is not valid?
>>
>> Daniel
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
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|Paul Spencer                           pspencer at dmsolutions.ca   |
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|Applications & Software Development                              |
|DM Solutions Group Inc                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/|
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