[Mapserver-dev] suggestion needed for using mapserver as a generic browser of 2000+ layers of data?

[woodbri at swoodbridge.com]

Stephen,

The limit may not be a problem at all, it depends on how your 
applications deals with all these layers in the first place. He are a 
couple of thoughts:

1) you can change the hardcode limit to anything you want and 
recompile, so set it to 2500 or 3000 it only uses up memory that 
would get used anyway if it was dynamically allocated.

2) the limit is only the number of simultaneous layers that can be 
loaded into mapserver at a given instance. I think it is highly 
unlikely that you will need all 2000+ layers loaded for any map draw.

3) I would assume you would have some front-end that helps the user 
sort through all these layers by classifying them in some way and 
then letting the user select and browse a few of them at a time. If 
this is the case then I would recommend dynamically generating a 
mapfile for this user's session that just has the subset of layers 
selected. You can enforce the hardcoded limit of selected layers in 
your front end application. 

4) If you want the user to be able to select layer ordering you would 
probably want to do that in the front end application also which 
would be another reason to dynamically generate the map files.

HTH,
  -Steve H.

On 8 Dec 2003 at 9:15, Stephen Clark wrote:

> 
> Hi all,
> 
> 
> I am working on a project to dynamically display over  2000+ layers of data
> (point, polygons, raster,  etc.) and am interested in finding a way to get
> past the HARD CODED number of layers in mapserver / mapscript *.map files.
> OR maybe there is some
> short term solution for using PHP mapscript to dynamically generate *.map
> files from a list of map files each specified by a type (e.g., raster
> layers, polygon layers, )
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Also, is there plans to have the HARD CODED number of layers in mapserver
> bug fixed in the 4.1 release?
> 
> thanks,
> Stephen
> 
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