WFS GetFeature Filters and character case

[Bart van den Eijnden]

Hi Tom,

I ran into this exact same problem last year.

I found the following e-mail thread on the subject:

http://mail.opengeospatial.org/pipermail/wfs-dev/2003-June/000139.html

So the problem is in the filter spec, and it seems that case-sensitive
search is supposed to be the default. I don't know though if any change
request has ever been submitted for this.

Best regards,
Bart

> Hi,
>
> When I query my MapServer WFS with a filter (like PropertyIsEqualTo or
> PropertyIsLike), the queries must be passed as case-sensitive with what
> is in the underlying repository.  For example, if I have a table with a
> record with a column value named "Birds":
>
> This works:
>
> <Filter>
>  <PropertyIsEqualTo>
>   <PropertyName>title</PropertyName>
>   <Literal>Birds</Literal>
>  </PropertyIsEqualTo>
> </Filter>
>
> This doesn't:
>
> <Filter>
>  <PropertyIsEqualTo>
>   <PropertyName>title</PropertyName>
>   <Literal>birds</Literal>
>  </PropertyIsEqualTo>
> </Filter>
>
> I couldn't find anything in the Filter 1.0.0 spec w.r.t. this.
>
> I find this cumbersome, especially in the context of having a WFS as a
> search server.  A WFS client with no prior knowledge may not be able to
> fetch the results it's looking for due to case sensitive input.
>
> My question is: whose problem is this?  Does the Filter spec allow for
> case-insensitive filters?  If no, the spec does allow a WFS to advertise
> and support user-defined functions.  Perhaps MapServer WFS can support
> such a function?
>
> While we're on this topic, some useful enhancements for WFS functions
> would be:
>
> - Min()
> - Max()
> - Average()
>
> ..Tom
>
>