Layer get distinct function...

[Steve Lime]

Hi all: Tom's recent post about time and WMS reminded me of a feature
that might be useful for WCS/WMS and other interfaces. The ability to
get a list of distinct values for an attribute within a layer. At the
moment with WCS for example you have to explicitly enter all available
times in metadata. Works fine for a few but would get tedious quickly. I
could also see this as being a way to extend templates to be more
dynamic (e.g. produce a select list) and data driven. It would be very
helpful to be able to mine the data for that list. I'd like to propose a
msLayerGetDistinct function that would return an array of all unique
values for an attribute. What do folks think, other better ideas?

Steve