request for comment: adding xslt processing to mapserver

[Frank Warmerdam]

Kralidis,Tom [Burlington] wrote:
> Perhaps the biggest issue this has raised is the need for a discussion
> of the future of MapServer XML support (i.e. msIO_printf vs. libxml2).
> Most of MapServer XML is msIO_printf.  The relatively recent OGC:SOS and
> OGC:OWS support is libxml2.  Before any decision on XSLT is made, I
> think we need to hash this out.  Comments?

Tom,

I'm in favor of moving all XML generation that is not not used for
large documents (which I assume is just the WFS GetFeatures request)
to libxml2 to ensure correctness of output.

I don't think it should be done for the GetFeatures since it becomes
impractical to return a very large result without using unreasonable
machine resources.

But before such an overhaul would go forward we would need someone
willing to commit the very substantial amount of time for coding, and
more importantly testing to ensure that nothing gets broken.  Given the
modest advantages to such a re-working, I'm dubious that someone will
come forward that wants to take this and with a willingness to do it right.

As a TSC/PSC member, if I had "resources to allocate", this would not
top the list of pressing needs.

Best regards,
-- 
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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    | President OSGeo, http://osgeo.org