[Geoserver-users] GeoServer REST API: restrictions on GeoServer object names?

While browsing through GeoServer 2.15.1 release notes I’ve stumbled on a bug report (GEOS-9054) that mentions that GeoServer’s REST API cannot handle certain characters in the names of some GeoServer objects such as layers and feature types

Here’s a link to the bug report:

https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOS-9054

Does anyone know if these naming restrictions are documented? This info is useful to anyone who wants to develop clients for the GeoServer REST API in order to implement validators and write unit tests.

Best regards,

Rui Maciel

Some of the restrictions are protocol specific and I am not aware of the OGC documenting everything in one spot.

For example:

  • WFS requires that layer names be good XML types (so you cannot start with a number). Technically you may still be able to generate GeoJSON but not XML output …
  • WCS has no such XML based restriction so having layers based the date of an orthophoto is fine…
  • We have also run into trouble with folks using “:” in a layer name (as we often use this character to serrate out :

Does that help?

···


Jody Garnett

First of all, thanks for taking the time to look into this issue. Clearing up this sort of questions regarding the design is very important to everyone who considers developing a client for GeoServer's REST API.

Regarding the restrictions, the info you've provided is quite helpful. Is it possible to update the documentation to include that information? It would be nice if developers had access to a specification to design their clients. For example, I'm sure that GeoServer employs input validators, at least in the server's admin portal. It would be nice if those validators were documented to allow potential client developers to have a fixed target. Otherwise they might end up adopting a naming scheme that backfires in production (i.e., the ":" issue), or even end up adopting a naming scheme that generates names that are accepted by the GeoServer REST API but are rejected by the GeoServer admin portal (i.e., using UUIDs as layer names).

Thanks for the help,
Rui Maciel

On 03/05/19 19:35, Jody Garnett wrote:

Some of the restrictions are protocol specific and I am not aware of the OGC documenting everything in one spot.

For example:

- WFS requires that layer names be good XML types (so you cannot start with a number). Technically you may still be able to generate GeoJSON but not XML output ...
- WCS has no such XML based restriction so having layers based the date of an orthophoto is fine...
- We have also run into trouble with folks using ":" in a layer name (as we often use this character to serrate out <workspace>:<layer name>

Does that help?
--
Jody Garnett

On Thu, 2 May 2019 at 02:37, Rui Maciel <rui.maciel@anonymised.com <mailto:rui.maciel@anonymised.com>> wrote:

    While browsing through GeoServer 2.15.1 release notes I've stumbled
    on a bug report (GEOS-9054
    <https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOS-9054&gt;\) that mentions
    that GeoServer's REST API cannot handle certain characters in the
    names of some GeoServer objects such as layers and feature types

    Here's a link to the bug report:

    https://osgeo-org.atlassian.net/browse/GEOS-9054

    Does anyone know if these naming restrictions are documented? This
    info is useful to anyone who wants to develop clients for the
    GeoServer REST API in order to implement validators and write unit
    tests.

    Best regards,

    Rui Maciel

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--
Rui Maciel

Senior Engineer

*Spin.Works*

rui.maciel(at)spinworks.pt

www.spinworks.pt <http://www.spinworks.pt/&gt;

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