Application schemas¶

The application schema support (app-schema) extension provides support for Complex Features in GeoServer WFS.

GeoServer provides support for a broad selection of simple feature data stores, including property files, shapefiles, and JDBC data stores such as PostGIS and Oracle Spatial. The app-schema module takes one or more of these simple feature data stores and applies a mapping to convert the simple feature types into one or more complex feature types conforming to a GML application schema.

The app-schema module looks to GeoServer just like any other data store and so can be loaded and used to service WFS requests. In effect, the app-schema data store is a wrapper or adapter that converts a simple feature data store into complex features for delivery via WFS. The mapping works both ways, so queries against properties of complex features are supported.