Foundation and Mapserver MAP file manag e tool

[Gregory S. Williamson]

Well, nobody would have to use the db mode, but I personally would find that easier than XML, which I find notoriously sensitive to misplaced spaces and the like. The readability of binary combined with the terseness of ASCII.

That said, XML might give some excellent options in communicating map data to other systems, GIS or not. The database would more less transportable, but perhaps would gain in some other ways (ACID aspects, internal safety/sanity checks, etc.). Such a db interface would want to use fairly limited SQL to support various databases such a Postgres, Oracle, MySQL, etc.

In general I've found that any non-trivial map is semi-hard to edit and read, and tools to help automate map file production would be a great help. It would allow for more customization for different users, IMHO.

Greg Williamson
DBA (natch)
GlobeXplorer LLC

-----Original Message-----
From:	UMN MapServer Users List on behalf of Umberto Nicoletti
Sent:	Thu 12/15/2005 3:42 AM
To:	MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Cc:	
Subject:	Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Foundation and Mapserver MAP file manag e tool
The trouble with databases is that they could be more difficult to
edit by hand than a xml file. Withoud a db involved the user would not
have to learn sql to be able to modifiy a map definition directly.

[OT]
In my app I use and XML to Java objects mapping tool called digester
and then use Velocity templates to generate the map file: Velocity
templates are also very intuitive and would enable users to mantain
many different versions depending on mapserver version for instance.
[/OT]

Regards,
Umberto

On 12/15/05, Norman Barker <nbarker at rsinc.com> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU]On
> Behalf Of Jeroen Ticheler
> Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 11:19 AM
> To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Foundation and Mapserver MAP file
> manag e tool
>
>
> Fully support this! I'm also looking for a DTD/schema that can
> produce valid Map files.
>
> MapServer may have to be modified in some parts to make sure it is
> consistent throughout when running map services based on files
> created by the schema.
>
> Also OGC specific parts have to be included in such schema to make
> sure we can quickly generate valid map files with OGC WMS/WCS and WFS
> support.
>
> I would like to use such such schema to create XSL transformations of
> metadata (ISO19115) stored in GeoNetwork opensource to generate map
> files for data producing OGC services (even on the fly).
>
> I would also use it to do XSL transformations of AXL documents I
> export from ArcMap using the MXD2AXL I developed to create map files
> straight out of ArcMap.
>
> Ciao,
> Jeroen
>
> On 15 Dec 2005, at 00:01, Bob Basques wrote:
>
> > Steve,
> >
> > Ok, now we're talking, XML!! Yeah, I even have a body here I can
> > put to work on something like this with some direction from the
> > rest of the community.
> >
> ><snip>
>
> Hi,
>
> I have been using XML / XSL for a while to create map files for our services.  From my experience it is easier to use a database (hypersonic is very light) or MySQL and then use the SQL extensions for stylesheets (http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/extensionslib.html) this broadens the applications of this technology, e.g. you could have web app updating the database, eclipse reading either the database or xml file or 'data objects'.  Whilst a schema enforces the correctness of an XML file, it doesn't support the transactional features of a database, allowing you to rollback etc.
>
> XSL is definitely the way to go though (IMHO), it is easy to use and learn.
>
> Norman
>

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