Test for .dbf files

[Thorsten Fischer]

Hello list.

I discovered that the .dbf files are in any circumstances neccesary
for the mapserver to draw a layer.

There seems to be a test if a .dbf file exists, even for
drawing plain polygon data. I understand that it might be
neccessary for drawing annotations, though it seems to prevent
me from getting annotation data from a database. If the .dbf
file is missing, plain polygon layers are not drawn.

It is possible to create a 0 byte name.dbf file for a name.shp file.
Drawing works fine then.

Is this a shapelib matter or a mapserver internal? Is this
even desired behaviour?


Thorsten Fischer