Retrieve label information from a different connection

[E Witteveen]

Hello,

Currently we are using mapserver on a small scale, and we are looking if 
we can put mapserver to usage in more situations. We also use Autodesk 
MapGuide Server and it has some functionalities which i cannot quite 
discover in mapserver.
A thing that we use quite often in Mapguide server is called the 
"secondary table", which can be used to retrieve information from a 
different datasource than the one displaying the gis information.
The reason for this is that we have to couple administrative data with 
geo stored in different locations due to the fact that we work in the 
grey-fields of industry. Importing data into a new system is not really 
a option.

The thing i want to accomplish is to display the gis-information from a 
shape and add the label information from a non-gis datasource.
- The shape contains a gid field and the shape itselve.
- The database contains a table with a gid and a label field.

In mapguide the viewport(extent) would determine wich gid's are used in 
the screen and based upon this a second query is fired to determine the 
label information ( SELECT labelfield FROM labeltable WHERE gid IN 
(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,41,42,43,44) )

I've found some information which mentions OGR Join, but i dont know if 
this is the right tool to do the job.

How can i accomplish this in mapserver without importing everything into 
the same datasource?

--
Ing. Eduard Yeb Witteveen           Software Engineer
Hawar Information Technology bv   lid Dijkoraad Groep
De Wymerts 7  8701 WT                        Bolsward
Tel: +31 (0)515 570333         Fax: +31 (0)515 570335
http://www.hawarit.com/             nl_NL fy_NL en_US