[mapserver-users] XML mapfile?

[Tom.Kralidis at ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca]

> -----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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> |         |           05/21/2002 02:27 PM         |
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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/
=================================