WFS output formats¶

Shapefile output¶

The shapefile format has a number of limitations that would prevent turning data sources into an equivalent shapefile. In order to abide with such limitations the shape-zip output format will automatically apply some transformations on the source data, and eventually split the single collection into multiple shapefiles. In particular, the shape-zip format will:

• Reduce attribute names to the DBF accepted length, making sure there are not conflicts (counters being added at the end of the attribute name to handle this).

• Fan out multiple geometry type into parallel shapefiles, named after the original feature type, plus the geometry type as a suffix.

• Fan out multiple shapefiles in case the maximum size is reached

The default max size for both .shp and .dbf file is 2GB, it’s possible to modify those limits by setting the GS_SHP_MAX_SIZE and GS_DBF_MAX_SIZE system variables to a different value (as a byte count, the default value being 2147483647).

Shapefile output format_options:

• format_option=filename:<zipfile>: if a file name is provided, the name is used as the output file name. For example, format_options=filename:roads.zip.

zip=${typename}
shp=${typename}${geometryType}
txt=wfsrequest

JSON and JSONP output¶

The JSON output format (and JSONP if enabled) return feature content as a GeoJSON document. Here is an example of a simple GeoJSON file;

{  "type": "Feature",
   "geometry": {
      "type": "Point",
      "coordinates": [125.6, 10.1]
   },
   "properties": {
      "name": "Dinagat Islands"
   }
}

The output properties can include the use of lists and maps:

{
  "type": "Feature",
  "id": "example.3",
  "geometry": {
    "type": "POINT",
    "coordinates": [ -75.70742, 38.557476 ],
  },
  "geometry_name": "geom",
  "properties": {
    "CONDITION": "Orange",
    "RANGE": {"min":"37","max":"93"}
  }
}

JSON output format_options:

• format_options=id_policy:<attribute name>=<attribute|true|false> is used to determine if the id values are included in the output.

  Use format_options=id_policy:reference_no for feature id generation using the reference_no attribute, or format_options=id_policy:reference_no=true for default feature id generation, or format_options=id_policy:reference_no=false to suppress feature id output.

  If id_policy is not specified the geotools default feature id generation is used.

• format_options=callback:<parseResponse> applies only to the JSONP output format. See WMS vendor parameters to change the callback name. Note that this format is disabled by default (See Global variables affecting WMS).

• format_option=filename:<file>: if a file name is provided, the name is used as the output file name. The extension json is optional, for example format_options=filename:export or format_options=features.json

JSON output system properties:

• json.maxDepth=<max_value> is used to determine the max number of allowed JSON nested objects on encoding phase. By default the value is 100.

CSV output¶

A Default CSV file uses a comma to separate values. Each line of the file is a data record. Each record consists of one or more fields, separated by commas. The separator can be changed using format_options as specified below.

csv file output format_options:

• format_option=filename:<file>: if a file name is provided, the name is used as the output file name. For example, format_options=filename:roads.csv.

• format_option=csvseparator:<csvseparator> (default is `,` ): if a separator is provided, it is used to separate values in output csv file. For example, format_options=csvseparator:- is used to get dash separated file.

Some special characters need to be handled using keywords as below:

• space separated: format_options=csvseparator:space

• tab separated: format_options=csvseparator:tab

• semicolon separated: format_options=csvseparator:semicolon