[Qgis-developer] Aliases of features attributes in Mapserver's WMS GetProjectSettings and GetFeatureInfo

[Marco Hugentobler]

Hi Marcel

Sounds good to have both name and alias in GetProjectSettings and to use 
name for FILTER.

 >Another question is, what should be used as attribute name in 
GetFeatureInfo response, alias or name? Current mapserver returns prefer 
aliases (if defined) in plain XML format, >but in GML format it always 
returns names. In my opinion, names should be used in both formats and 
aliases could be passed as additional info (if particular format allows 
that), >or not used at all in GetFeatureInfo cause clients would be able 
to perform mapping from names to aliases by info from GetProjectSettings.

I think it should behave similar to the info-tool in QGIS and give the 
alias. Standard WMS clients can then display the text / html without 
being aware there is a difference between name/alias. Specialised 
clients (e.g. QGIS webclient, Lizmap, ...) can read alias / name from 
project settings and use that for filter string (which is also 
non-standard).

 >but in GML format it always returns names
 >And the last issue is that mapserver always returns all features 
attributes in GetFeatureInfo response is GML format, even if they are 
marked to be excluded in WMS server.

These are two bugs in the gml featureInfo code.

Pull requests are welcome. However, to avoid merging conflicts, it might 
be good to wait for https://github.com/qgis/QGIS/pull/1296 .

Regards,
Marco



On 08.04.2014 08:05, Marcel Dancak wrote:
> Hi, I found some issues in Mapserver when using aliases for features 
> attributes.
>
> GetProjectSetting response has features attributes of vector layer in 
> this form
>
> <Attribute typeName="INTEGER" precision="0" length="0" 
> editType="LineEdit" type="qlonglong" comment="" name="PK_UID"/>
>
> where "name" property contains either attribute's alias (if defined) 
> or its name. So you are loosing attribute's name when using aliases, 
> and that make it impossible to perform searching by this attribute 
> with GetFeatureInfo request (with FILTER parameter). Separate "alias" 
> property would be much better.
>
> Another question is, what should be used as attribute name in 
> GetFeatureInfo response, alias or name? Current mapserver returns 
> prefer aliases (if defined) in plain XML format, but in GML format it 
> always returns names. In my opinion, names should be used in both 
> formats and aliases could be passed as additional info (if particular 
> format allows that), or not used at all in GetFeatureInfo cause 
> clients would be able to perform mapping from names to aliases by info 
> from GetProjectSettings.
>
> And the last issue is that mapserver always returns all features 
> attributes in GetFeatureInfo response is GML format, even if they are 
> marked to be excluded in WMS server.
>
>
> I have all these issues fixed and I can create a pull requests, but 
> first I want to discuss about it and maybe another solutions will came 
> out.
>
>
> Marcel


-- 
Dr. Marco Hugentobler
Sourcepole -  Linux & Open Source Solutions
Weberstrasse 5, CH-8004 Zürich, Switzerland
marco.hugentobler at sourcepole.ch http://www.sourcepole.ch
Technical Advisor QGIS Project Steering Committee