[Mapserver-dev] Advice requested

[Ned Harding]

Frank,

I like that idea...  Unfortunately, I not too familiar with Linux and the
.so API's.  If I were to implement it with the Win32 side of things
(LoadLibrary,GetProcAddress...) as well as all the shared code, could you
help me implement the Linux equivalents and test on Linux?  Specifically,
the second option (CONNECTIONTYPE of CUSTOM with a PROCESSING "LIB=...")
looks like it will involve the least changes to the parser so that would be
my vote.

Thanks,

Ned.


-----Original Message-----
From: Frank Warmerdam [mailto:warmerdam at pobox.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 7:42 PM
To: mapserver-dev at lists.gis.umn.edu
Subject: Re: [Mapserver-dev] Advice requested


Ned Harding wrote:
> I have our proprietary vector file format as well as a thematic join 
> to our demographic retrieval engine done and working within MapServer, 
> but right now I have it pretty hacked in to MapServer and I'm looking 
> for a more general solution so I don't have to completely reimplement 
> with each MapServer build.
> 
> Would people rather see me implement a CONNECTIONTYPE "Custom" and 
> some sort of plugin interface so any proprietary data sources would go 
> through the same function stubs with maybe a run time binding (a 
> structure full of pointers, similar to C++ virtual functions), or 
> should I just create a CONNECTIONTYPE "SRC_GEO" and provide stub 
> functions to CVS that say that file format is not implemented?
> 
> Once again, thanks to all the MapServer developers.  This is good 
> stuff.  If anyone wants to see a rough demo of MapServer dynamically 
> theming with a choice of thousands of demographic variables, let me 
> know and I'll send you a link.

Ned,

What about using the name of the shared library or DLL to be loaded as the
value for the CONNECTIONTYPE?  In the code a dynamic connection type code
would be assigned when otherwise unknown connection types with a .so or .dll
ending are encountered, and the .so/DLL would be loaded.  Some standard
function name could be invoked to populate the structure full of function
pointers.

Alternatively a CONNECTIONTYPE of CUSTOM with a PROCESSING "LIB=..."
directive used to indicate what shared library or DLL should be loaded.

The advantage of this sort of approach is that stock builds of MapServer
could load custom connection types without having them built in, or being
limited to just one connection type.  Of course the approach is a bit
complicated.

Best regards,
-- 
---------------------------------------+--------------------------------
---------------------------------------+------
I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam,
warmerdam at pobox.com
light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent

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