gdalindex question

[Ed McNierney]

Frank -

In my experience things work fine relative to SHAPEPATHs.  I suspect that most of the "strange" behavior reported is in cases without SHAPEPATHs, and it is possible that the chief problem is the lack of a easy-to-find algorithm for locating files (including TILEINDEX-referenced files) for new users.

     - Ed

----- Original Message -----
From: Frank Warmerdam <warmerdam at POBOX.COM>
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Sent: Tue,  5 Oct 2004 11:50:53 -0400
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] gdalindex question


> Ed McNierney wrote:
> > Frank -
> >
> > It's entirely possible that I haven't been looking, but I'm not aware of a
> clear specification on how relative paths are SUPPOSED to work.  I am under the
> impression that relative paths are somewhat vulerable to how the Web server is
> configured and how the MapServer CGI is referenced relative to that Web server.
> >
> > In the absence of a SHAPEPATH and/or IMAGEPATH statement, it's been my
> impression that the behavior of relative paths is not specified.  There have
> been recent changes to MapServer that have changed this behavior (at least in
> some cases I've observed) but I can't say that I thought either the earlier or
> the newer behavior was "wrong".
> >
> > If we intend to have relative paths behave in some consistent, predictable way
> (e.g. always relative to the directory containing the mapfile) we should be sure
> that's well-specified before trying to fix the code.  I apologize if that's
> already been done and I've overlooked it, but I'm not aware of it.
> 
> Ed,
> 
> In the code substantial change were made (for 4.0 I think, or possibly
> 4.2) to use msBuildPath() to build paths to files.  It basically "tries"
> to find the file relative to the shapepath, or failing that relative to the
> map or failing that taking it as an absolute path.  And there is an additional
> version for taking names in tile indexes relative to the tile index file
> I think.
> 
> So, I think, at the least real files should work if accessed relative to the
> SHAPEPATH location.  That should include tileindexes.  If at least that much
> isn't working then I would like to know.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> --
> ---------------------------------------+--------------------------------------
> I set the clouds in motion - turn up   | Frank Warmerdam, warmerdam at pobox.com
> light and sound - activate the windows | http://pobox.com/~warmerdam
> and watch the world go round - Rush    | Geospatial Programmer for Rent
>