W*S Client Library for Python

A few years ago, J.F. Doyon and I collaborated on a Python package for programming with WMS and WFS called PyOGCLib. It found use in Thuban and a few other Python programs. I was never a happy PyXML user and so when I started up the Python Cartographic Library, took the opportunity to start over using ElementTree. My partner this time was Julien Anguenot of Nuxeo, and the driving force was the CPSGeo product for CPS. Last weekend I spent some time factoring our code out into a new project: OWSLib.

"OWS" is short for OGC(TM) Web Service. OWSLib is used by PrimaGIS to inspect WMS and WFS. It has a simple but effective capabilities document parser, and code for making web map context documents that probably has little use for anyone outside CPS at this time. WMC and SLD parsers are an obvious next step. There is a GML parser for PCL in progress which might also be of interest to OWSLib users.

OWSLib doesn't require the Python Cartographic Library. It depends only on ElementTree or lxml. Your choice. There's no official release yet, but I expect to have one in October in time for the Seattle Plone Sprint.