[mapserver-users] character encoding

[Jeff McKenna]

On 11-09-07 12:59 PM, Chris Jackson wrote:
> Hi all
>
> I am having some issues with special characters in my application (sure
> I am not the first!) and wondered what the best way is to 'clean up' the
> data so I know it is specifically in a given format say UTF-8 or ISO. My
> source data was from KML -> shp using ArcGIS 10 (though who knows what
> the kml format was!).  One would assume if using ArcMap on a UK machine
> would give you an ISO output....  Should I copy the characters back into
> the attribute table via ArcGIS (but what program should I use to copy
> the characters from - Word...).  I did use the ArcGIS export registry
> setting to export my supposed ISO shapfile to UTF-8 format (but the
> label rendering is wrong).  Any ideas would be much appreciated!

Hi Chris,

My quick thoughts are:

- use ogr2ogr (the GDAL/OGR library) to do your conversion from KML to 
shp (if you are on Windows, the MS4W product can help you with that 
http://www.maptools.org/ms4w/index.phtml?page=downloads.html)
- another option is to use the KML in its native format with MapServer 
(http://www.mapserver.org/input/vector/kml.html), which is also possible 
with MS4W
- if by "application" problems you mean map label problems with encoded 
characters, this howto should help you: 
http://www.mapserver.org/mapfile/labelencoding.html

Hope that helps.

-jeff

-- 
Jeff McKenna
MapServer Consulting and Training Services
http://www.gatewaygeomatics.com/