Discovering layer type

[Etienne Labuschagne]

Hi all,

I'm a newbie to MapServer and OGC in general.

I can discover the layer names with a WMS getCapabilities call.  The other
thing I need to discover is what type each layer is (Point, line, polygon)
and also what attribute fields there are available on each layer.

Is there an OGC way to get this information from any OGC compliant map
server?  The reason I say "OGC" is that my client program that I am writing
need to adhere to that standard and not nescessarily only MapServer.

Although I use MapServer predominantly, I may have to use other map servers
later and do not want to be bound by MapServer proprietary code.

Thanks
Etienne