[mapserver-users] XML mapfile?

[Paul Ramsey]

A fair compromise would be to continue to maintain the mapfile as it
stands, but to add a mapfile accessor more which sends back an XML
representation of the mapfile to the client. That way client tools can
read everything out of the mapfile using standard XML tools, which the
server continues to use the fast-and-simple plain text version.

Daniel Morissette wrote:
> 
> C F wrote:
> >
> > 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.
> 
> I think that Steve has been considering a switch to XML eventually, but
> I don't think there is any formal plan.
> 
> I agree that XML might give more flexibility to the user by allowing him
> to read the mapfile from external tools, but it would be at the cost of
> performance (i.e. speed) when parsing the mapfile for every request.
> Combine this loss of performance with the fact that XML would be harder
> to edit manually than the current format, and you know where I stand
> personally.
> 
> I'm not saying that if we were redesigning from scratch I wouldn't
> consider XML (we use it a lot in other apps), but since we've already
> got a very good (fast and simple) mapfile format then I won't be the one
> initiating a switch to XML mapfiles.
> 
> Note that MapScript already gives you access to almost every piece of
> information from the mapfile, so when the CGI cannot do what you need
> then the logic path is to switch to MapScript, and then sky is the
> limit.
> 
> My 0.02$
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------
>  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.