[mapserver-dev] Replacing libwww with libcurl

[Daniel Morissette]

Hi,

We've run into some issues with libwww which is used to download WMS
layers in MapServer.  A crash that happens deep inside libwww when doing
multiple map draws that include WMS layers:
  http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=237

I've wanted to get rid of libwww for quite a while already, and I think
this bug will be the excuse to do it.  Unfortunately libwww is poorly
documented, is huge and is way too complex for what we need.  There are
also some simple things that I could never figure how to do with libwww
such as getting the MIME type out of a download and initiating a POST
request (needed for WFS).

So I'm planning to switch to libcurl (http://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/)
before the 3.7 release, probably next week.  It seems that libcurl is
simple to use, well documented, and does everything we need without any
of the extra magic that made libwww annoying and a pain to use.

BTW, this shouldn't affect much of the mapserver code since all the
libwww stuff is localised in maphttp.c.

If anyone has comments, suggestions of a better/simpler lib to use, or
objections then please speak now of forever hold your peace.  :)

Daniel
-- 
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 Daniel Morissette               morissette at dmsolutions.ca
 DM Solutions Group              http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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