[mapserver-users] mapmygis.c

[Paul Ramsey]

Do you use the MyGIS feature of Mapserver?

  --with-mygis[=ARG]      Include MyGIS Support (ARG=yes/path to mysql_config)

If you do, please speak up, because I am making a motion to the
developers list that we remove this very old, obscure feature. This is
not about MySQL Spatial support, which exists, and will continue to
exist, via the OGR driver. It's about the old MyGIS feature, which
predates MySQL Spatial, and stores geometry in MySQL blobs.

Paul

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Paul Ramsey <pramsey at cleverelephant.ca>
Subject: mapmygis.c
To: mapserver-dev <mapserver-dev at lists.osgeo.org>

I come not to praise mapmygis.c, but to bury it.

- It has no maintainer.
- It operates on a model of spatial in MySQL (features in blobs) that
has been super-ceded by the official spatial implementation that has
now been there for 5 years.
- It confuses people into thinking that *it* is the real MySQL spatial
support in Mapserver, when the real support is via OGR.
- It is deeply ugly code, and now that the mappostgis.c code it was
based on is retired, I can freely say that. The longer it is there,
the more likely some unwitting soul will template something on it.
(See mapmssql2008.c)

I move that we re-move.

+1 Paul!