How to get/use a Query Result for further processing?

[Renato F. Salas]

Hi, I'm just new to MapServer/PostGIS. I've setup the tutorial and have
a running application using the CGI-BIN mapserver executable.

As far as I know I can only make queries and display the results on a
Template with the appropriate tags that just point to the columns on the
table where the geometries (the_geom) data resides.

What I would like to do is to get the result somehow (just the ID of
the_geom) for doing something else, like generating a SELECT on a
related table using PostgreSQL/PostGIS to show, say, all the reported
cases in that particular point, with pictures, sounds, and more stuff
not available in the geom table. For doing that I'd probably use a
scripting language like ASP or PHP.

I think this should be a trivial scenario but I can't find any
documentation on the web. I would like to avoid using PHP/Mapscript just
to keep it simple.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

Thanks a lot,

Renato F. Salas

PD: Is there any book on MapServer?. I find myself browsing the web a
lot to get simple answers. There should be one consistent place to go
from the basics to the advanced topics.