How to show one to many relationships in GML from GeoServer/PostGIS?

Question

I am just figuring out how to use GeoServer and PostGIS. I am using the States.shp example that came with GeoServer, and I have uploaded that into a table into the PostGIS database. I have created a new layer, and can make WFS requests to get back GML. For example:

http://localhost:8080/geoserver/mine/ows?service=WFS&version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName= mine:usa_view&maxFeatures=1&

This returns a GML of the top 1 state (which happens to be Illinois). I use a view, and aside from the geometric data, I also get all the fields I have exposed in the view, which happen to be “name” and “abbreviation”.

If I add a second table, say a list of cities within each state, is it possible to return this information within the GML? Is there an easy way to do this using the setup I have described?

Answer 1

The simple answer is no.

The complex answer is may be but you'll need to understand and use the complex feature extension (http://docs.geoserver.org/stable/en/user/data/app-schema/complex-features.html). This is non trivial so you might want to think about other ways of doing this like making a second request using the boundary of the state polygon as a filter.