[mapserver-users] Starting out with WMS Client/server

[Daniel Morissette]

Tyler Mitchell wrote:
> 
> But I'm still not quite sure on some syntax of the resource url.
> I.e. the docs give the example:
> http://my.host.com/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=mywms.map&REQUEST-GetCapabilities
> My question is how does "/cgi-bin/mapserv?" know where to get "mywms.map"?
> I can see how the wrapper script helps direct this, but how would you do it
> without the wrapper?  Do you put the map file in the cgi-bin folder?  How
> does it find it?
> 


The example in the WMS-Server-HOWTO is bad: It should be passing an
absolute mapfile path to the map parameter, 
e.g.
http://my.host.com/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/home/data/mywms/mywms.map&REQUEST=GetCapabilities

The behavior if you pass a relative mapfile path in the map= parameter
is quite likely server-specific.  I believe that for most servers it
would look for the map file in a location relative to the location of
the mapserv executable but I don't think this is guaranteed to work
everywhere.

BTW, the map= parameter is not WMS-specific, so any complement of
information with respect to its value should probably go in the mapserv
CGI documentation.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------
 Daniel Morissette               morissette at dmsolutions.ca
 DM Solutions Group              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.