[Mapserver-users] Help Requested: Easy "gen2shp" application on RH Linux

[Ken Waters]

Hi All,

I'm looking for a simple way to convert "gen" format text files into shapefiles on the RH Linux platform.  To date I have been running a public domain Windows program (gen2shp) that I found on the Web.  However, I need to move this application to a Linux box and this is where I have been having problems.  This Linux box will not be running Apache and
Mapserver, so I am not interested in trying to set up a full install on it.  I simply want to have the ability to easily create shapefiles from text files without all the other overhead.  Here's what I've tried so far, without success:

- Tryed to compile gen2shp.c from http://www.intevation.de/~jan/gen2shp

    RESULT: Found I had to download shapelib and compile that package and was successful with that.  However, was unable to successfully compile gen2shp.c as it didn't seem to be linking the required shapefil.h library.  Could not figure out what I was doing wrong.

- Looked for Linux binaries of gen2shp

    RESULT: Only found the Windows binaries which I already have and use.  Are there some available somewhere that I don't know about, or possibly a suitable alternative?

- Downloaded mapserver-4.2.1

    RESULT: A bit overwhelmed as it's much more than I need for this machine and will require lots of pre-building of libraries and such that will not be used in the long run.  My experience with mapserver has been only with Windows using the binaries.  I did not find binaries for Linux.

So, are there any suggestions for how I can proceed?  Perhaps I need to pursue further one of the options above that I tried.

Thanks much!

Ken