FME workspace runner mangles WFS parameters

Question

When running a workspace using a WorkspaceRunner transformer in FME some non-standard query string parameters in the WFS url are discarded and/or seemingly randomly replaced by equals signs.

Setup is like this:

Workspace "control":
  creator -> workspace runner (this runs the workspace "wfsread", parameter WFS URL reads https://[serverpath]?SERVICE=WFS&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&NodeId=287

Workspace "wfsread":
  wfs reader -> shapefile writer
  reader URL is "https://[serverpath]?SERVICE=WFS&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&NodeId=287"

Now, when running the control workspace, the log of workspace "wfsread" starts with

2019-01-15 10:12:42| 0.0| 0.0|INFORM|FME Configuration: Command line arguments are 'C:\FME\fme.exe' 'D:/wfsread.fmw' '--SourceDataset_WFS' 'https://[serverpath]?SERVICE=WFS=GetCapabilities=287' '--FEATURE_TYPES' 'L525 L50 L48 L383 L382 L381 L377 L34' '--DestDataset_ESRISHAPE' 'D:\'

...so FME is somehow throwing away the characters "NodeId" and replacing ampersands with equal signs in the call to the wfsread workspace.

Is this a known issue, and/or are there workarounds/settings that can mitigate this?

Answer 1

As the problem starts at the "&" it might be caused by the url not being URL encoded.

Not tested but you might solve this by encode the string with a TextEncoder before feeding it in the FeatureReader.

& --> %26

Answer 2

Omitting all the OGC parameters from the query string (service, request) and setting the query string inside the control workspace to just https://[serverpath]?NodeId=287 solves the issue. FME appends the OGC parameters automatically and apparently fails sometimes when they are present.