[mapserver-users] XML mapfile?
Tom.Kralidis at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca
Tom.Kralidis at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca
Tue May 21 17:24:08 PDT 2002
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tyler Mitchell [mailto:TMitchell at lignum.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 21, 2002 7:16 PM
> To: C F
> Cc: mapserver-users at lists.gis.umn.edu
> Subject: Re: [mapserver-users] XML mapfile?
>
>
>
> I think you want to get into the WMS server specifications. The idea
> (AFAIK) is to make a URL request like:
> http://myserver.com/cgi-bin/mapserv?map=/var/www/html/msapps/m
ymapfile.map&request=getcapabilties
>
> This will return a nice XML summary of your map file. Let me
> know how it
> goes Frank.
> :)
> Tyler
>
>
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> | | "C F" |
> | | <gis_consultant at hotmail.com>|
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> | | owner-mapserver-users at lists.|
> | | gis.umn.edu |
> | | |
> | | |
> | | 05/21/2002 02:27 PM |
> | | |
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> | Subject: [mapserver-users] XML mapfile?
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>
>
> Maybe I just don't know MapServer well enough, but I'm having trouble
> getting all the information I need to get out of the mapfile with the
> restrictions imposed by template file architecture. In other
> words, I want
>
> to get at specific elements in the mapfile from the client which is
> typically done by placing tokens in template files.
> It seems that this and many other problems I encounter could
> be solved by
> making the .map file format XML based. I searched the
> archives and have
> seen quite a bit of discussion on it but I didn't a conclusion. The
> benefit
> for me being that I could download and easily parse and retrieve any
> information I needed using XPath. Is this being considered
> at all? If so,
>
> I'd be happy to contribute to the discussion and development
> (wherever I
> could, but I don't know the C language yet) if that would help. A
> combination of an XML mapfile, XSLT templates and XPath
> extremely powerful
> compared the current template files. If I'm not making any
> sense or anyone
>
> would like more specifics on what that architecture would be
> like, I'd be
> happy to elaborate... once I nail it down :)
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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Making a GetCapabilities request will not return MapServer specifics, such
as classes, symbolization, templates and the like.
I think an XML-based mapfile is certainly nice, in a self-describing way,
and is easily parseable compared to what currently is in MapServer, but
constructing an XML mapfile may be a heartache, especially manually. Also,
for me, it's the simplicity of the mapfile which makes MapServer such an
attractive package.
=================================
Tom Kralidis
Systems Scientist
Canada Centre for Remote Sensing
Tel: (613) 947-1828
http://www.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/
=================================
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