Is MapServer Thread-safe?

[Paul Ramsey]

Ed is totally on the mark here. There are very few applications that  
REALLY, REALLY need mapscript. For most read-only applications, doing  
your "logic" in PHP/ASP/Java, and then passing URLs back to mapserver  
can give you everything you need.  Note that you can over-ride *any*  
mapfile parameter you want via the CGI interface (see "Changing map  
file parameters..." at http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/reference/cgi/controls) 
.  Running your mapserv as a fast-CGI enhances your ability to scale  
as well.  For extra logic, serve your data layers out of a spatial  
database, and use spatial SQL to answer the hard questions, and  
Mapserver to render the answers.

P.


On Jan 22, 2008, at 7:13 PM, Ed McNierney wrote:

> My first reaction is to wonder why you feel you need MapScript  
> (which leads to the whole issue of thread safety in the first  
> place).  I would be inclined to build your application as I have  
> done others, using the .NET/C# environment to process Web requests  
> and then compute an appropriate WMS request to render the map image  
> required.  You would use MapServer in simple CGI/WMS mode, sending  
> HTTP requests for images which you then retrieve in your C# code and  
> embed in an output page of your design.
>