Hi,
the difference between the native CRS and the declared CRS in feature types has been matter of ongoing issues. (CRS -> coordinate reference
system, the definition of the spatial reference system in which
coordinates are expressed).
Before Geoserver 1.5.0 the declared CRS was basically used only for
capabilities reporting, and the native (if available) was used
for both WMS and WFS purposes.
In 1.5.1 a not very successfull compromise was tried out:
* if the data had the same CRS as the declared one, no problem
* if there was no native CRS, then the declared one was used
* if there was native CRS and it was different, data was
on the fly reprojected to the declared CRS.
This hasnt' worked well because various users are apparently
dealing with data set whose CRS is declared, but its wrong.
So, today I merged a set of patches that put the users back in
control. The feature type editor now reports the WKT for both
the declared and the native CRS, and if there is a native CRS
offers the user three chioces:
* to force the declared CRS and forget about the native one
* to reproject from native to declared
* to use the declared only for capabilities reporting purposes
and use the native in all other cases (just like before 1.5.0).
Can I kindly ask people to try this out and report back results?
The patch has been quite extensive, so it may have introduced
bugs and unexpected behavious. Test is with your data and
let me know.
You can grab either a nightly of 1.5.x or 1.6.x here:
http://geo.openplans.org/nightly/1.5.x/
http://geo.openplans.org/nightly/trunk/
Just be sure to grab one from July 18 onwards, the previous
ones won't have the patches inside.
Cheers
Andrea