Real time shapefile creation

[Paul G. Allen]

I have a couple of things I want to do and a couple of questions resulting from
them.

1. I would like to be able to allow a user to enter some text into a text box.
This text would then be used as a query string for a database or large shapefile
and create a map that included only the items and extents covering the items
matching the string. Example: The user enters a date, a map page is returned for
all items found in the database with an attribute matching that date. Is this
currently possible and how?

2. Given a map, I'd like the user to be able to enter a query string into a text
box and have all the attribute data for all items or the first item with an
attribute matching the string returned. Similar to above only a query is done
instead of a new map drawn.

3. How exactly do the itemnquery and itemquery modes work? What is meant by "an
item/value" pair?

4. Similar to (1) above. I'd like to be able to create shapefiles from existing
data at the request of the web user, then have the resulting shapes displayed on
a map. Can this be done by calling a CGI script that (1) creates the shapefile,
(2) calls mapserv to create the map, (3) returns the resulting page to the user?
(possibly this is exactly the same as (1), but I've been up all night working
and things are a little cloudy :)

PGA