Shapefile questions

[Sandeep Bashyal]

Hello,

I have the following questions about shapefiles and mapserver:

1. Does Mapserver support "merged" polygons in shapefiles? E.g. arcview
allows you to merge two or more NON-ADJACENT polygons, such that they are
treated as a single shape and point to the same rows in the attribute
table. I was wondering if mapserver supports such shapefiles with  merged
non-adjacent polygons.

2. Is there a way to assign shapeindex for shapes in a layer from one of
the fields in the attribute table (like in the mapfile or by dnamically
adding a layer with phpmapscript)? I have a layer with over 4000 polygons
whose attribute ID's do not correspond to the shapeindex returned from
query results. I need the attribute ID's to link to a external database
and display results.

Any advice on an easy way to write shapeindexes into a field in the
attribute table would also be helpful.

Thanks in advance.

--
Sandeep Bashyal
--
   National GIS Officer
   Humanitarian Assistance Information System (HAIS)
   United Nations (NEP/01/008)
   UN House, Pulchowk
   G.P.O. Box 107
   Kathmandu, Nepal
   Tel: (+977) 01 5543957
        (+977) 01 5554304
   Cell:(+977) 9841270854
   Fax: (+977) 01 5528059
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mailto:gis at undphais.org.np
mailto:sandeep at earthmapping.com
http://www.undp.org.np