[mapserver-users] Mapserver, mapfile in utf8 and data-path

[Rahkonen Jukka (MML)]

Hi,

I made a little test as well and this is how my mapfile behaves here in Finland:


1)      Write your mapfile in Latin 1 and save

2)      Change encoding with Notepad++ from ANSI into UTF-8

Changing the encoding with Notepad++ is changing the non-ascii characters into UTF-8 strings which show as boxes with black background in Notepad++

äö -> xE4 xF6

This file works with MS4W. What does not work is to have the mapfile in UTF-8 and then write special characters (äö) from the keyboard. This is the opposite to  what needs to be done for Linux. For Linux it is not enough to change the encoding with Notepad++ but special characters must be re-written from the keyboard while the document is already in UTF-8.

I am not sure if there is a clean solution. I suppose that it is not enough to edit the mapfiles but user should also set Windows to use UTF-8 encoding which may not be simple https://superuser.com/questions/1033088/is-it-possible-to-set-locale-of-a-windows-application-to-utf-8.  Read about Windows locales and codepages and go on with testing if it feels important and report about your experiences. Myself I have not bothered even it would be nice to be able to use the same, UTF-8 encoded mapfiles both on Linux and on Windows. Special characters in paths is a bad idea and users can claim themselves from the problems but it is not possible to avoid special characters for example in filters and expressions if they appear in the source data.

-Jukka Rahkonen-

Lähettäjä: mapserver-users [mailto:mapserver-users-bounces at lists.osgeo.org] Puolesta mapping at sedesign.de
Lähetetty: 24. tammikuuta 2018 10:27
Vastaanottaja: mapserver-users at lists.osgeo.org
Aihe: [mapserver-users] Mapserver, mapfile in utf8 and data-path


Hello community!

I use Mapserver 7.0.7 in ms4w 3.2.3 package on Win Server 2012 R2. Now i tried to generate a simple mapfile in utf8 encoding with this layer:

LAYER

    Name "freiflaechen"

    DATA "C:\Vektordaten\freiflächen\freiflä_zusammen.shp"

    TYPE polygon

    STATUS on

    CLASS

      COLOR 102 185 120

    END

END

Unfortunately it doesn't work because there a some special character in the path and in the file name. So if i change the encoding of my mapfile to LATIN1, everything works fine. Also if i remove the special character from the path and in file name. But i look for a clean solutuion. I have many files to be shown with mapserver that have special characters and i want to handle my mapfile in the prescribe utf8 encoding.

Any ideas?



Best regards



Evgeni Tcherkasski
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