[Mapserver-dev] Error Messages

[woodbri at swoodbridge.com]

Arrgh,

I think we have gone backwards with error messages! I have just spent 
2+ hours debuging a mapfile, symbol file, and fontset file because of 
really useless error messages like these:

Warning: MapServer Error in msDrawMap(): Failed to draw layer named 
'countries'. in /data1/home/httpd/html/web2/poff/info.php on line 9

Warning: MapServer Error in msLoadSymbolFile(): (data/examples.sym) 
in /data1/home/httpd/html/web2/poff/info.php on line 6

Warning: MapServer Error in msLoadFontset(): Error opening fontset 
data/fonts.list. in /data1/home/httpd/html/web2/poff/info.php on line 
6

I'm using php mapscript:

MapServer version 4.0-beta1 OUTPUT=GIF OUTPUT=PNG OUTPUT=JPEG 
OUTPUT=WBMP OUTPUT=PDF OUTPUT=SWF SUPPORTS=PROJ SUPPORTS=FREETYPE 
SUPPORTS=WMS_SERVER SUPPORTS=WMS_CLIENT SUPPORTS=WFS_SERVER INPUT=OGR 
INPUT=GDAL INPUT=SHAPEFILE  
PHP MapScript Version  ($Revision: 1.168 $ $Date: 2003/06/04 17:57:12 
$)  


This is very frustrating. I pointed the symbolset to another working 
symbolset file in it worked great, but I still haven't a clue why 
this other file does not work, or what line is a problem, or 
anything. In fact I commented out 99% of the file and it still had 
problems so I not even sure if it can access the file or it is 
something in the file. A core file would be more useful!

BTW, I am this is not my stuff, I am trying to help a newbie that was 
have trouble.

Sorry for the rant, but this is really problematic.

-Steve W.