MapScript Documentation (Re: [Mapserver-users] Re: problem getting bounds of poly shape)

[Lowell Filak]

Yes, something does exist to extract the information but at best it
still has to be manually editted because of what is extracted.
The SWIG code contains a lot of information for SWIG's own use that
really doesn't pertain to MapScript.
I think I remember seeing a note in the newer SWIG generated code
somewhere that addresses that.
Overall, using the automatically generated manual is not a bad starting
point as long as you already have an idea of where all the peices fit
together, otherwise ready the source files directly can give you a
better idea of how things fit.
Such as the setBounds (that I completely forgot about, argh!) and what
happens with members like $class->{styles} - does it return only the
first or does it... (appears to return the first for mapfile defined
styles but the last mapscript defined style).
Lowell

The following message was sent by Sean Gillies <sgillies at frii.com> on
Mon, 22 Sep 2003 08:48:54 -0600.

> On Monday, September 22, 2003, at 07:52  AM, Puneet Kishor wrote:
> 
> > Actually Palle Due Larsen's tip worked. I have to first call 
> > $shpObj->setBounds... then $shpObj->{bounds} returns values happily.
> >
> > What I would like to know is how Palle knew this... where in the docs 
> > could I have read this?
> >
> > I've said this before, and I know that I am on extremely thin grounds 
> > saying this again because I myself have done very little to contribute 
> > to it, but Lowell, the Perl/MapScript documentation is really really 
> > in need of more work.
> >
> > Since you are the one who has done probably the most amount of work on 
> > this -- first, a resounding thanks to you. But a close second, how, oh 
> > how, can we improve the docs?
> >
> > I've added the above tip to the wiki... perhaps that is the best way 
> > to increase the quality and quantity of documentation. But the docs 
> > are getting fragmented -- besides the versioning (different commands 
> > for 3.5, 3.6, 4.0) there is the mapfile reference, the mapscript 
> > reference, and the wiki to look at besides the email archives. Any 
> > ideas on how to bring all this together into one consolidated, 
> > intuitive whole? A user's manual? Is that what a wiki is already >
doing?
> >
> > Simply adding readymade scripts is not going to help because every app 
> > is ever so slightly different.
> >
> > But, once again -- thanks Lowell for all your effort in documenting.
> >
> 
> Puneet, all,
> 
> Is there no Perl module for generating documentation from a Perl module 
> source?
> Something like Python's pydoc?
> 
> cheers,
> Sean
> 
> 
> --
> Sean Gillies
> sgillies at frii dot com
> http://www.frii.com/~sgillies