a couple of questions

[Daniel Morissette]

Robert Ofarrell wrote:
> 
> Firstly, why is there such a big difference between the mapscript PHP
> specification on your web page compared to the one released with the
> mapserver software?
> 

Robert,

We've tried to keep the PHP version of MapScript as close as possible
to the original MapScript (in Perl).  But there are indeed
differences, and the main reason is that the Perl version of MapScript
is produced using SWIG, but since PHP is not supported (yet) by SWIG
then we had to implement all the PHP wrappers manually.

Also, because of the way things (like objects) work in PHP3, there are
some things that had to be adapted from the original MapScript to make
the wrappers usable, like using set() methods to set member variables. 
Anyways, it's a long story, but I'm sure you'll get the idea.

> Secondly, what stage of development is PHP MapScript currently at?
> 

I would call is stable... or "permanent beta" would probably better
describe what happens with a piece of software like MapServer that keeps
getting better and better but never really freezes.  PHP MapScript 
should be in sync with the main MapScript version in Perl.  If you're
aware of anything missing then please let us know.

> Lastly, does PHP MapScript support all the functionality of MapServer?  I
> have been trying to complete such functions as Query Maps and I have come
> to a brick wall - having to code expression changes to show the results of
> a mouse click, which is proving to be cumbersome on large data sets.
> 

Again, PHP MapScript is just a set of wrappers on top of the same C
functions that are used by other flavours of MapScript... so what works
with Perl/Tcl/Python MapScript should work with the PHP version too.
If you could send to the list specific examples of the problems that you
ran into then that could certainly help us in helping you.


Humm... I guess I should have asked that at the beginning, but which
version of MapServer/MapScript are you using?  Several things have been
improved/fixed since 3.3.011, the nightly builds since the end of
December are probably better than version 3.3.011 was back in July.  If
you're still using 3.3.011, then I suggest that you get a recent nightly
build.

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