[mapserver-users] multiple shapefiles in single layer

[Joe Bussell]

Greetings,
    I am attempting to combine multiple shapefiles (data from different
counties) into single layers.  How can I do this without declaring
multiple layers which must be handled seperately in the mapfile?  Is
there a standard method which will preserve the ability to querry
the data?  The mapfile syntax does not seem to allow multiple data tags
for a given display layer.  This leads me to wonder if there are tools
which can merge shapefiles into a larger superset.  Is anyone aware of
such a tool?

Joe Bussell
On Time Systems