How to call the method of DescribeFeatureType in OWSLib

Question

I want to execute DescribeFeatureType operation of WFS services. However, I can’t find the method to fulfil this operation in OWSLib. Can anyone kind enough to tell me how to do this?

The following is my code snippet:

from owslib.wms import  WebMapService
from owslib.wfs import  WebFeatureService as wfsServericelayer

wfslayer=wfsServericelayer('http://***:8080/geoserver/test/ows')
for i in wfslayer.operations:
    print i.name

Gives:

GetCapabilities
DescribeFeatureType
GetFeature

But how to execute the DescribeFeatureType method?

operationT=wfslayer.getOperationByName('DescribeFeatureType')

Answer 1

This question is a little old but is still first on Google, so for anyone else coming across it.

The properties from the DescribeFeatureType operation can be retrieved using the WebFeatureService.get_schema method.

For example, for the following XML returned from the DescribeFeatureType operation;

<xsd:schema xmlns:test="/" xmlns:gml="http://www.opengis.net/gml" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" elementFormDefault="qualified" targetNamespace="/">
    <xsd:import namespace="http://www.opengis.net/gml" schemaLocation="http://geoserver:8080/geoserver/schemas/gml/2.1.2/feature.xsd"/>
    <xsd:complexType name="change_points_latestType">
        <xsd:complexContent>
            <xsd:extension base="gml:AbstractFeatureType">
                <xsd:sequence>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="start" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="end" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="source" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="area_ha" nillable="true" type="xsd:decimal"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="class" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="quality" nillable="true" type="xsd:string"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="coord_x" nillable="true" type="xsd:decimal"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="coord_y" nillable="true" type="xsd:decimal"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="id" nillable="true" type="xsd:decimal"/>
                    <xsd:element maxOccurs="1" minOccurs="0" name="geom" nillable="true" type="gml:PointPropertyType"/>
                </xsd:sequence>
            </xsd:extension>
        </xsd:complexContent>
    </xsd:complexType>
    <xsd:element name="change_points_latest" substitutionGroup="gml:_Feature" type="test:change_points_latestType"/>
</xsd:schema>

The properties can be retrieved;

 service = WebFeatureService(url, version='1.0.0')
 service.get_schema('change_points_latest')

This will output:

{'geometry': 'Point', 'properties': {'area_ha': 'decimal', 'class': 'string', 'start': 'string', 'id': 'decimal', 'source': 'string', 'coord_y': 'decimal', 'end': 'string', 'coord_x': 'decimal', 'quality': 'string'}}

Ref: WebFeatureService_.get_schema source - https://github.com/geopython/OWSLib/blob/HEAD/owslib/feature/init.py#L166