How to get list of layers from geoserver

Question

Is it possible to get a list of all the layers served by geoserver? I.e. is there some specific url request to send that does this?

Answer 1

The capabilities links on the geoserver home page each list layers served via various services:

• the WMS capabilities lists layers that support requests for tiled images
• the WFS capabilities lists layers that support requests for vector data
• the WCS capabilities lists layers that support raster queries

A sample WMS request would look like this:

http://demo.opengeo.org/geoserver/wms?request=GetCapabilities&service=WMS&version=1.0.0

Answer 2

So just for completeness, here's an example of how to get a list/array of layers:

        var formatter = new OpenLayers.Format.WMSCapabilities();
        var endpoint = "path/to/wms/endpoint";
        var layers = [];

        // async call to geoserver (I'm using angular)
        $http.get(endpoint + 'request=GetCapabilities').

        success(function(data, status, headers, config) {

            // use the tool to parse the data
            var response = (formatter.read(data));

            // this object contains all the GetCapabilities data
            var capability = response.capability;

            // I want a list of names to use in my queries
            for(var i = 0; i < capability.layers.length; i ++){
                layers.push(capability.layers[i].name);
            }
        }).

        error(function(data, status, headers, config) {
            alert("terrible error logging..");
        });