GetCapabilities

The GetCapabilities request provides the following information about a WMS service:

• All interfaces a WMS service can support
• Image formats it can serve (e.g. jpeg, png, gif)
• List of spatial reference systems available for delivery of map data
• List of all exception formats for return of exceptions
• List of all vendor specific capabilities (or properties) that are available for modifying or controlling actions of the service with the current value of each capability
• List of one or more map layers available in the service
• List of layers supporting the optional GetFeatureInfo interface

The following parameters can be used in a GetCapabilities request. See the WMS Specification documentation for detailed descriptions of each parameter.

Request Parameter	Required/Optional	Description
VERSION=version	O	Request version. Valid values are 1.0.0, 1.1.0, and 1.1.1.
REQUEST=GetCapabilities	R	Request name.
SERVICE=WMS	R	Service type. "WMS" is the only valid value.
SERVICENAME (vendor specific)	O	By default, the capabilities of the default WMS service is queried. If you want to use a non-default service, the service name must be included in the URL.

Examples

Example 1: Using the minimum amount of parameters

This example shows the minimum number of parameters needed to make a successful GetCapabilities request. This example uses the default WMS service, which is the service name you selected in the WMS Connector Administrator. For more information about the Administrator page, see Using the WMS Connector Administrator.

http://<hostname>/<deploy_name>/com.esri.wms.Esrimap?VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&SERVICE=WMS&

where

• <hostname> is the URL domain name for your site such as www.esri.com or fully qualified machine name.
• <deploy_name> is the name you assigned to the Web application when you deployed the WMS Connector. The recommended deployment name is "wmsconnector".
• http://<hostname>/wmsconnector/com.esri.wms.Esrimap? is the full URL to access the WMS Connector on an ArcIMS site.
• VERSION=1.1.1 is the request version.
• REQUEST=GetCapabilities is the request name.

Example 2: Specifying a nondefault WMS service

In this next example, a non-default WMS service is specified.

http://<hostname>/<deploy_name>/com.esri.wms.Esrimap?VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&SERVICE=WMS&SERVICENAME=myService&

where

• SERVICENAME=myService is the service you are requesting. The service name is case sensitive.

Note: Hard returns added to URL for readability

A second way to specify a non-default WMS service does not use the SERVICENAME parameter.

http://<hostname>/<deploy_name>/com.esri.wms.Esrimap/myService?VERSION=1.1.1&REQUEST=GetCapabilities&SERVICE=WMS&

where

• /myService is the service you are requesting. The name is case sensitive and must be placed before the question mark (?) in the URL.

Response

The response to a GetCapabilities request is a Capabilities file in XML format. For more information on the content of a Capabilities file, see About the Capabilities File.

Errors

By default, the GetCapabilities response returns an XML structure containing error information if the WMS service detected an error and the EXCEPTIONS parameter was set to application/vnd.ogc.wms_xml.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="yes" ?> <ServiceExceptionReport version="1.1.1"> <ServiceException> Missing SERVICE parameter </ServiceException> </ServiceExceptionReport>

You will always receive an error if the HTTP request is improperly formatted or a required parameter is missing. Common error messages are:

Problem	Error message
REQUEST missing	Missing mandatory REQUEST parameter. Possibilities are {capabilities|GetCapabilities|map|GetMap|feature_info|GetFeatureInfo}
SERVICE missing	Missing SERVICE parameter
Invalid SERVICE	Invalid SERVICE value, it should be WMS.