Ok guys. I examined the situation and came to the conclusion that it is a bug in MapServer. In the source of mapserver v5.0.2, file mapwms.c, line 1071:
> msOWSPrintEncodeParam(stdout, "LAYER.NAME", lp->name, OWS_WARN, > " <Name>%s</Name>\n", NULL); should really be > msOWSPrintEncodeMetadata(stdout, &(lp->metadata), "MO", "name", OWS_NOERR, > " <Name>%s</Name>\n", NULL); since the code conflicts with the comment in the code on line 1747 in the same file which states: "Layer Name is optional but title is mandatory." Which exactly agrees with the specs which states at page 25 of v1.3.0: "7.2.4.6.2 Title A <Title> is mandatory for all layers; ..." and "7.2.4.6.3 Name If, and only if, a layer has a <Name>, then it is a map layer that can be requested by using that Name in the LAYERS parameter of a GetMap request. A Layer that contains a <Name> element is referred to as a "named layer" in this International Standard. If the layer has a Title but no Name, then that layer is only a category title for all the layers nested within. A server that advertises a Layer containing a Name element shall be able to accept that Name as the value of LAYERS argument in a GetMap request and return the corresponding map. A client shall not attempt to request a layer that has a Title but no Name." IMHO this means you can ommit the <Name> but have to provide the <Title>. And if the layer has no name it can simply not be requested in a GetMap-Request. If I change the code like above I have to provide a "wms_name" in the METADATA part of the MAP file to make the layer queryable. If I ommit "wms_name" then the layer get's no <Name> and can therefore not be requested by the client. IMHO it's then up to the server whether or not to render that layer which is exactly what I want. For overviews I want multiple layers where only one is active for a given scale but which one is up to the server. Therefore a client should not be able to explicitly request one of them. Instead I group those layers in a named layer by a GROUP clause. So please check this out. May be we should file a bug report on that. But I think someone else should confirm this... Best regards, Andreas Eichner _______________________________________________ mapserver-users mailing list mapserver-users@lists.osgeo.org http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/mapserver-users