[Mapserver-users] 1000 shapefiles or a database?

Mon Feb 24 23:56:48 PST 2003

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Hi everybody,

before attacking a new version of my application, I would like to answer a 
question which roams in my head since a couple of days. Here it goes:

I have almost 1000 shapefiles, all covering the whole world, which can be 
divided into three groups:
   - national (Germany, Thailand, China etc.),
   - subregional (Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe etc.),
   - regional (Africa, Europe, Asia etc.).

The information in the dbf files holds statistical values like GDP, 
Population Density, Land Area etc. per country, subregion or region. I have 
all values/tables stored as well in a MySQL database.

So, a simple thing would be to load all the shapefiles into the 
application. But that does not seem to be very elegant to me. Another idea 
is to just load one file of each type (thus three in total), and to query 
then, upon the thematic (e.g. GDP, Population Density etc.) and regional 
selection (country/sub-/region) from the user the database to display the 
correct layer, using for example five different classes. And when 
identifying the value of a specific country/subregion/region the exact 
value would be drawn from the database?

Unfortunately the question gets more difficult when mentioning that the 
available years for the variables differ; some hold values for the years 
1960 to 2000, some only for the years 1990 and 2000, some for the years 
1970-75, 1975-80....

Any hints, ideas and examples are very much appreciated.

Thanks,

Stefan

         _______________________________________

         Stefan Schwarzer
         Consultant on GEO

         UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva
         Chemin des Anemones 11
         CH - 1219 Chatelaine
         Switzerland

         Tel: (+41) 22.917.83.49
         Fax: (+41) 22.917.80.29

         Email: stefan.schwarzer at grid.unep.ch
         Internet: http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/
         _______________________________________ 
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Hi everybody,<br><br>
before attacking a new version of my application, I would like to answer
a question which roams in my head since a couple of days. Here it
goes:<br><br>
I have almost 1000 shapefiles, all covering the whole world, which can be
divided into three groups: <br>
  - national (Germany, Thailand, China etc.),<br>
  - subregional (Western Europe, Central Europe, Eastern Europe
etc.),<br>
  - regional (Africa, Europe, Asia etc.).<br><br>
The information in the dbf files holds statistical values like GDP,
Population Density, Land Area etc. per country, subregion or region. I
have all values/tables stored as well in a MySQL database.<br><br>
So, a simple thing would be to load all the shapefiles into the
application. But that does not seem to be very elegant to me. Another
idea is to just load one file of each type (thus three in total), and to
query then, upon the thematic (e.g. GDP, Population Density etc.) and
regional selection (country/sub-/region) from the user the database to
display the correct layer, using for example five different classes. And
when identifying the value of a specific country/subregion/region the
exact value would be drawn from the database?<br><br>
Unfortunately the question gets more difficult when mentioning that the
available years for the variables differ; some hold values for the years
1960 to 2000, some only for the years 1990 and 2000, some for the years
1970-75, 1975-80.... <br><br>
Any hints, ideas and examples are very much appreciated.<br><br>
Thanks,<br><br>
Stefan<br><br>
<br>
<x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3><x-tab>        </x-tab>_______________________________________<br><br>
</font><font size=2><x-tab>        </x-tab><b>Stefan
Schwarzer<br>
</b><x-tab>        </x-tab>Consultant
on GEO<br><br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>UNEP/DEWA/GRID-Geneva<br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>Chemin des
Anemones 11<br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>CH - 1219
Chatelaine<br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>Switzerland<br><br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>Tel: (+41)
22.917.83.49<br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>Fax: (+41)
22.917.80.29<br><br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>Email:
stefan.schwarzer at grid.unep.ch<br>
<x-tab>        </x-tab>Internet:
<a href="http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/" eudora="autourl">http://geodata.grid.unep.ch/</a><br>
</font><font size=3><x-tab>        </x-tab>_______________________________________</font></body>
</html>

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