Try adding SERVICE=WFS to the URL of your POST request. MapServer needs
at least something in the URL itself to be able to tell that it's a WFS
request, otherwise it assumes by default that it is a traditional
mapserv CGI request, hence the "no template provided" error.
I am realizing just now that it may not be correct according to the WFS
spec to require that WFS clients include the SERVICE=WFS GET parameter
in the case of POST requests. If that's the case then perhaps you could
file a ticket to have this fixed in future releases of Mapserver. The
simple fix would be for MapServer to automatically include the
SERVICE=WFS in the onlineresource advertized in GetCapabilities and hten
clients would pick it up automatically.
Daniel
Frank Steggink wrote:
Hello List,
While developing a WFS client, I've encountered a problem with MapServer. I
don't have a local setup of MapServer running, but use a few public available
services at the web. Those are:
*
http://map.ns.ec.gc.ca/MapServer/mapserv.exe?map=/mapserver/services/envdat/config.map
(MapServer 4.8.3)
* http://www.bsc-eoc.org/cgi-bin/bsc_ows.asp (MapServer 4.8.1)
Our WFS client supports both GET and POST requests. It checks the Capabilities document which
HTTP method to use. The document of the first service can be found here:
http://map.ns.ec.gc.ca/MapServer/mapserv.exe?map=/mapserver/services/envdat/config.map&SERVICE=WFS&VERSION=1.0.0&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&;.
GetCapabilities is always done with GET, but other requests can vary. For testing purposes I
made POST the default HTTP method for the requests. When I try to do a DescribeFeatureType or a
GetFeature to these services with POST, I'm getting the following message:
<HTML>
<HEAD><TITLE>MapServer Message</TITLE></HEAD>
<!-- MapServer version 4.8.3 OUTPUT=GIF OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG OUTPUT=WBMP
OUTPUT=PDF OUTPUT=SWF OUTPUT=SVG SUPPORTS=PROJ SUPPORTS=FREETYPE SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER
SUPPORTS=WMS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WFS_SERVER SUPPORTS=WFS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WCS_SERVER
SUPPORTS=THREADS SUPPORTS=GEOS INPUT=JPEG INPUT=POSTGIS INPUT=OGR INPUT=GDAL
INPUT=SHAPEFILE DEBUG=MSDEBUG -->
<BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF">
mapserv(): Web application error. No template provided. <br>
</BODY></HTML>
The Capabilites document lists the online resource URL's for
DescribeFeatureType and GetFeature, so POST should be allowed for these WFS
requests. I'm sure that the WFS request is correct, since it works with other
WFS servers, like Geoserver, and Oracle Spatial Web Services, and I can not
find anything that might be wrong on my side. Here is the raw request (headers
+ post data):
POST /envdat/map.aspx HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: text/xml
Host: map.ns.ec.gc.ca
Content-Length: 579
Expect: 100-continue
Proxy-Connection: Close
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>
<DescribeFeatureType version="1.0.0" service="WFS" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.opengis.net/wfs http://schemas.opengis.net/wfs/1.0.0/WFS-basic.xsd";
xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/wfs"; xmlns:b="http://www.bentley.com/schemas/x-Bentley.XMLTemplate.0.1"; xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";
xmlns:ows="http://www.opengis.net/ows"; xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"; xmlns:ogc="http://www.opengis.net/ogc";
xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema";>
<TypeName>wfs:envirodat</TypeName>
</DescribeFeatureType>
While searching the mailing list, I found replies of people suggesting that WFS might not be enabled (MapServer not
compiled with WFS support), but since WFS requests with GET work fine, this is obviously not the case. I also found
another suggestion here:
http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?S2=MAPSERVER-USERS&q=wfs+post+template&s=&f=&a=&b=. It is suggested
to add the parameters "service=WFS" and "version=1.0.0" to the URL for POST, but this doesn't work
either. Maybe I would need to test with a more recent build, but I couldn't find one at the web. But this would mean
that I have to change the online resource URL, but the correct URL cannot be predicted. The correct URL to post to
should be mentioned in the Capabilities document. The second service (www.bsc-eoc.org) returned the same reply with the
parameters, but the first service (at map.ns.ec.gc.ca) returned this:
<ServiceExceptionReport
xmlns="http://www.opengis.net/ogc"; xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance";
xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.opengis.net/ogc
http://schemas.opengis.net/wms/1.1.1/OGC-exception.xsd";>
<ServiceException>
msWFSDispatch(): WFS server error. Incomplete WFS request: REQUEST parameter
missing
</ServiceException>
</ServiceExceptionReport>
If I would add the Request parameter, then it would be WFS / GET again, and
that's not what I want. (Well, I normally do, but this is for testing purposes.)
I was getting similar responses with GetFeature, but since I changed my code, the WFS client doesn't come that far (because DescribeFeatureType doesn't work) anymore.
Since there are no problems with GET requests, our client can successfully
query data. But since POST is also available, I would expect it to work as
well. I hope that someone can look into this. If POST really causes problems,
it would be better to remove the associated online resource URL's from the
Capabilities document.
Regards,
Frank Steggink
Bentley Systems, Inc.
Software Developer Geospatial
3645, boul. Ste-Anne
Québec, Qc. G1E 3L1
Canada
Tel: +1 418 666 7691 ext. 289
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
WWW: http://www.bentley.com
--
Daniel Morissette
http://www.mapgears.com/
