the .map file language

[Stephen Lime]

It's the same thing. Map files are NOT line but rather token based so:

  LAYER NAME "mylayer" MINSCALE "240000"... END

Is perfectly valid. It's a matter of personal preference. Since I liked the line-based display and wrote the original demos that's probably why that has held on. A move to XML for input is planned but it's "heavy" too. The best reason I see for the XML move is the validation that comes along a mapfile DTD.

Steve

>>> <nwerneck at yahoo.com.br> 10/29/00 04:36 AM >>>
	Hi...

	Isn't that .map file language just too "vertical"?? A line per 
attribute of each object makes it a "low-density" language. You 
need a lot of lines to pass little information.
	Wouldn't it be nice to have some HTML-like language... Dig it 
(do you still say this? :)  ):

	<LAYER name="cities" data="cities" type="point">
		<CLASS expression="/myxtplikz/" maxscale="5" 
minscale="20" size=5 symbol=3>
			<LABEL type="truetype" font="new-gotic" size="5">
		</CLASS>
		<CLASS expression="/lex luther/" maxscale="5" 
minscale="20" size=3 symbol=2>
			<LABEL type="truetype" font="new-gotic" size="4">
		</CLASS>
	</LAYER>

if i'm not mistaken, you can't have two label items per class, so, 
maybe we can make that in a different way... maybe some lisp--
like language

	(LAYER name="cities" data="cities" type="point">
		(CLASS expression="/myxtplikz/" maxscale="5" 
minscale="20" size=5 symbol=3
			(LABEL type="truetype" font="new-gotic" size="5"))
		(CLASS expression="/lex luther/" maxscale="5" 
minscale="20" size=3 symbol=2
			(LABEL type="truetype" font="new-gotic" size="4")))

	Even better isn't it???	Of course, you still can take advantage 
from the old-fashined way. Mybe puttting the attributes in different 
lines make it easier to locate the ones we're configuring some time.

...
		(CLASS
			expression="/myxtplikz/"
			maxscale="5" minscale="20"
			symbol=3 size=5
			(LABEL type="truetype" font="new-gotic" size="5"))

		well, I'm done for the moment... :)

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