Web Feature Services (WFS)
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 | What is a Feature?
A feature is an Object that is an abstraction of a real world phenomenon. This object has a set of properties associated with each having a name, a type, and a value. An example of a feature might be Road with a Name, Location (line geometry), Width, Speed Limit, and Jurisdiction.
Typically these features are stored in a spatial database, shapefile, or other format. |
| What is a WFS?
A WFS allows uniform access to features stored on a server. Use a WFS when you want to perform actions such as:
- query a dataset and retrieve the features
- find the feature definition (feature's property names and types)
- add features to dataset
- delete feature from a dataset
- update feature in a dataset
- lock features to prevent modification
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The WFS and WMS Services
The WFS specification describes a set of related operations:
| Service Name |
Description |
| GetCapabilities |
Provides a summary of the Server and its capabilities. This includes information such as what operations are supported, where the other services are located, and a summary of the datasets available. |
| GetFeature |
Query a dataset and receive a set of features. |
| GetFeatureWithLock |
Query a dataset and (a) receive a set of features (b) lock the features from modification. |
| DescribeFeatureType |
Get information about the definition of a feature - what properties it has and what types they are. |
| Transaction |
Update, insert, or delete features. |
| LockFeature |
Prevent features from being modified. |
The basic method of communication is XML
A WFS server accepts XML requests and returns XML responses
| XML
The next page in this documentation describes XML, and each of the request/response XML formats are discussed in the individual sections. |
A typical WFS conversion begins with the client requesting the server's capabilities. The resulting document (discussed later) will describe what operations the server support, what datasets are available, and where to send the each of the request.
The client then makes other requests to the WFS server.
