[OpenLayers-Users] GetFeature VS MapScript generated csv file

[Gilles Bassière]

Hi Alexandre,

I assume your service create a file on the server side. That's probably 
not what you want unless you need to store your CSV for later reuse. 
Your PHP script should output the CSV data instead of writing it to disk:
- either you keep your existing script and eventually output the file 
with the PHP readfile() function (or equivalent)
- or you can simply print your data to standard output with basic echo 
statements.

In both case you may consider using the header function to specify the 
correct mime-type of the output (e.g. header("Content-type: 
text/plain"); or something like that).

Hope it helps,
Gilles

Alexandre Dube wrote:
> Hi Eric,
>
>     My service only creates a file.  When I try to read 
> response.responseText, it's empty.  I could just read the file on the 
> file system but it seems to me that it's the wrong way of doing it.  I 
> would prefer the standard way of returning the content.  Can you give me 
> a hint on how to do it ?
>
>     Many thanks,
>
> Alexandre
>
> Eric Lemoine wrote:
>   
>> Hi. What do you mean when you say your php service does return
>> anything and just create a file? Do you mean your service just creates
>> a file on the file system? Really it should send the text in the
>> response, so that you can most probably replace OpenLayers.Format.GML
>> with OpenLayers.Format.Text and i'll just work. I'm hoping i've
>> understood your question correctly. Eric
>>
>> 2008/8/15, Alexandre Dube <adube at mapgears.com>:
>>   
>>     
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>>     In my application, I dynamically build a <select> element with
>>> cities as options using a GetFeature request and reading from GML format
>>> to generate it.
>>>
>>>     It works perfectly but is kinda slow because of the size of the GML
>>> format.  A dev and friend of mine suggested that I should generate my
>>> own text file using phpMapScript.  It was quite easy to do and works
>>> perfectly.  It generates a file which uses the same format as the
>>> OpenLayers.Format.Text ( tab separated values, coordinates and title as
>>> city name ).
>>>
>>>     Now I want to replace the GML format by Text format but don't really
>>> understand how this must be done.
>>>
>>>     I tried this :
>>>         OpenLayers.loadURL("/bdga/csvCityBuilder.php", '', this, setCities);
>>>     and the file is created...  but my php file is not a standard
>>> request.  It doesn't return anything, it only creates a file.
>>>
>>>     I could load the generated file with standard javascript function,
>>> but I was wondering if there is already something in OpenLayers I could
>>> use, like the following ( which obviously isn't working ).  Maybe I'm
>>> missing something.
>>>         oText = new OpenLayers.Format.Text();
>>>         oFeatures = oText.read(response.responseText);
>>>
>>>     Bellow is the GML version of it which works fine.  Any help would be
>>> appreciated.
>>>
>>> // a GetFeature on layer BDGA_HABIT_P_POINT to get all cities and their
>>> // coordinates.  See setCites function for more info.
>>> sUrl = sMSURL;
>>> sUrl += "?map=";
>>> sUrl += sBDGAMapPath;
>>> sUrl += "&service=WFS&version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature";
>>> sUrl += "&TYPENAME=BDGA_HABIT_P_POINT";
>>> OpenLayers.loadURL(sUrl, '', this, setCities);
>>>
>>> // add one option per city to a select html element with value equal to
>>> // the city coordinates ( longitude, latitude )
>>> function setCities(response) {
>>>     oGML =  new OpenLayers.Format.GML();
>>>     oFeatures = oGML.read(response.responseText);
>>>
>>>     var aCities = new Array();
>>>
>>>     // put the results in an array first to be able to sort it
>>>     for (var key in oFeatures){
>>>         var szValue = "";
>>>         szValue += oFeatures[key].geometry.x;
>>>         szValue += ",";
>>>         szValue += oFeatures[key].geometry.y
>>>
>>>         aCities[key] = {
>>>           cityName: oFeatures[key].attributes['HAP_NM_TOP'],
>>>           lonlat: szValue
>>>         };
>>>     }
>>>
>>>     // sort the array by city name
>>>     aCities.sort(sortByCityName);
>>>
>>>     // create on option per city and add it to the select element
>>>     var oSelect=document.getElementById("zoomToCity");
>>>     for (i=0; i<aCities.length; i++){
>>>         var oOption = document.createElement('option');
>>>         oOption.text=aCities[i]['cityName'];
>>>         oOption.value=aCities[i]['lonlat'];
>>>         try
>>>         {
>>>             oSelect.add(oOption,null); // standards compliant
>>>         }
>>>         catch(ex)
>>>         {
>>>             oSelect.add(oOption); // IE only
>>>         }
>>>     }
>>>
>>>     // The list has finished to be created, so enable it and remove the
>>> first
>>>     // option that contained the "please wait" msg
>>>     oSelect.disabled = "";
>>>     oSelect.remove(0);
>>> }
>>>
>>> // returns the aCities array sorted by cityName
>>> function sortByCityName(a, b) {
>>>     var x = a.cityName.toLowerCase();
>>>     var y = b.cityName.toLowerCase();
>>>     return ((x < y) ? -1 : ((x > y) ? 1 : 0));
>>> }
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Alexandre Dubé
>>> Mapgears
>>> www.mapgears.com
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Users mailing list
>>> Users at openlayers.org
>>> http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/users
>>>
>>>     
>>>       
>
>
>   

-- 
Gilles Bassiere
MAKINA CORPUS
30 rue des Jeuneurs
FR-75002 PARIS
+33 (0) 1 44 82 00 80
http://www.makina-corpus.com

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