Building dynamic maps using Perl or PHP

[Daniel Morissette]

Stephan Dunning wrote:
> 
> My thinking is that I should be able to connect to my database using either
> Perl or PHP, then pull in my data and join it to the chosen shapefile .dbf,
> build my mapfile, and display the map for the user.  Does this sound
> reasonable?  
> Which is the better laguage to use: Perl or PHP (or another)?
> Are there any recommended resources available in addition to the Perl and
> PHP sites linked through MapServer's site?  Does anyone have a good example
> of a similar application?

Stephan,

That approach has been used by us and by a couple of MapScript users and
works very well.  Note that you won't be able to 'join' your created DBF
table to an existing shapefile... you'll have to copy the .shp/.shx and
create a new dbf for it with a temporary (unique) filename (you could
use a logical link for the .shp/.shx on Unix).

Unfortunately I'm not aware of any sample application available in
source code that does that.  However, there is a sample script
distributed with the MapServer source that shows how to create
shapefiles: mapserver/mapscript/php3/examples/test_writeshape.phtml

In our case we used PHP (obviously!).  Since you're on NT I'm not sure
if Perl is an option for you.  I don't think we've had a report of
succesfull use of Perl MapScript on NT yet?

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
 Daniel Morissette                morissette at dmsolutions.ca
                 http://www.dmsolutions.ca/
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  Don't put for tomorrow what you can do today, because if 
      you enjoy it today you can do it again tomorrow.