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Date: | 2013/08 |
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Author: | Thomas Bonfort |
Contact: | thomas.bonfort@gmail.com |
Status: | Adopted |
Version: | MapServer 7.0 |
MapServer has no knowledge of the character encoding of a datasource, which has multiple implications:
This RFC proposes to add an ENCODING keyword at the LAYER level. Layer datasources that have an ENCODING set, and different than UTF8, will have its attributes converted to UTF8 in the GetShape and GetNextShape vtable wrappers.
This RFC has some notable backwards incompatibility issues for users who were treating non UTF8 or ASCII datasets:
It should be noted however that these incompatibilities can and should be seen as a way to fix MapServer’s flawed handling of these encoded datasources.
None or barely noticeable:
TBD
While a more general treatment of this issue might also include handling the encoding of the actual mapfile (to avoid forcing UTF8 as a mandatory mapfile encoding), this solution is not proposed, as:
+1 from ThomasB, MikeS, DanielM, SteveW, PericlesN, SteveL, TamasS and StephanM