[OWSLib-devel] Parsing data from ESRI WCS servers

[Christopher Eykamp]

Hello,

I found a problem with OWSLib and parsing metadata from a ESRI WCS 
server.  It seems that ESRI does not fully adhere to the OWS standards, 
and uses slightly different namespaces.

ESRI ==> xmlns:ows="http://www.opengis.net/ows"
MapServer ==> xmlns:ows="http://www.opengis.net/ows/1.1"

This causes parsing of XML emitted by ESRI servers to fail.  To be 
clear, the problem is entirely on the ESRI side; OWSLib is doing the 
right thing.  However, I think it would make sense to patch OWSLib to be 
able to read the ESRI data as ESRI is a rather big player in the GIS world.

I would propose moving all the attribute parsing into a function, which 
would replace the repeated namespace references sprinkled throughout the 
code.  That function could try the standard namespace first, and if that 
failed, try the ESRI namespace.

This is the approach adopted by OpenLayers, and I think it would make 
sense to apply to OWSLib as well.

If there is some agreement that this is a good way to do, I will submit 
a patch.  However, I am in the process of leaving my current position, 
so if this is not decided by the middle of next week, I will lose access 
to my current workspace and toolset, and there may be some delay getting 
the patch written.

Thanks,

Chris