[Mapserver-users] Write a comment with python mapscript to the mapfile ?

[Sean Gillies]

On Jul 21, 2004, at 5:15 AM, Jan Schüngel wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I am writing a mapfile with mapscript and that all works fine, but now 
> i want to
> write some lines with comments like "# file automatically created by 
> program xyz
> to the beginning of the ne created file.
>
> Is there any possibility to do this with python mapscript ?
>
> Thanks
>
>    Jan S.

Jan,

None of the mapscript modules can output comments.

What you *can* do is use the MAP metadata for this purpose.  If you are 
using
mapserver versions 4.2 or older, the syntax would be something like

     the_map.setMetaData('Created By', 'Program XYZ')

or in 4.3

     the_map.web.metadata.set('Created By', 'Program XYZ')

then, after you save the map, you should have a mapfile that includes

     WEB
       METADATA
         "Created By" "Program XYZ"
         ...

I prefer this way because it will give you the future capablility of
programmatically accessing the metadata instead of trapping it in 
comments.

cheers,
Sean

--
Sean Gillies
sgillies at frii dot com
http://users.frii.com/sgillies