How to query multiple features from Geoserver WFS?

Question

Are there any methods to query several features by id other than one entry by a single url request?

The scenario is I store around 200 point layers in PostgreGIS. Each maintains 100k entries GPS points. My boss wants to let them "move" in the browser. Obviously it's impossible to query all entries at once. So I want to query like 1k entries for one layer in every query. So basically I want to query the features by their id, like "starID<=ID<=endID". But it seems like by WFS url query, it can only query one entry every time by the featureID=ID. I'm also thinking about using the ordinary Postgre other then PostgreGIS, but just in case there might be spatial queries in the future.

Answer 1

As of version 1.0.0 of the WFS, specification the request GetCapabilities had an optional attribute named maxFeatures that allows limiting the number or returned features.

Another optional attribute GetCapibilities had was featureId, which allows giving the list of desired features, identified by its id.

As said before, these attributes are optional. Thus, if you are planning using any of them, check before that your WFS server implements them.

Answer 2

You can use a filter, where you provide the Query. This Answer will show you how to use a filter in the WFS query: http://gis.stackexchange.com/a/26298/442

The filter can be something like this:

<ogc:Filter>
  <ogc:PropertyIsBetween>
    <ogc:PropertyName>ID</ogc:PropertyName>
    <ogc:LowerBoundary>
      <ogc:Literal>25</ogc:Literal>
    </ogc:LowerBoundary>
    <ogc:UpperBoundary>
      <ogc:Literal>124</ogc:Literal>
    </ogc:UpperBoundary>
  </ogc:PropertyIsBetween>
</ogc:Filter>