Response to a WMS getcapabilities returns ContactInformation (msautotest)

[nsavard]

When sending a WMS getcapabilities request the default response returns an empty ContactInformation? tag. It didn't return this tag in the previous version of MapServer. I checked and couldn't find any information on this topic. So is it supposed to return this tag?

[tomkralidis]

This is as a result of #2070. An empty ContactInformation element is okay as far as a valid GetCapabilities response.

[dmorissette]

I found that an empty ContactInformation? element was ugly (even if it's valid) and cehcked the source to see if we could fix this easily. It seems that we'll have to live with the ugly empty ContactInformation? element since that's valid for all WMS versions (including 1.3.0) and that keeps the source code simple.

We also have the following note in the source that explains the situation:

  /* contact information is a required element in 1.0.7 but the */
  /* sub-elements such as ContactPersonPrimary, etc. are not! */
  /* In 1.1.0, ContactInformation becomes optional. */

The alternative would result in a more complicated (and ugly) implementation of msOWSPrintContactInfo(), so in the interest of simplicity we'll close this as WONTFIX.