Mapserver CGI question

[Ed McNierney]

Andy -

You should learn about the OGC interfaces to MapServer.  The WMS interface's GetCapabilities request, for example, is a simple HTTP GET request that returns a huge amount of information about the map service - a list of available layers, for example - in XML, no less!

     - Ed

Ed McNierney
TopoZone.com

----- Original Message -----
From: ANDY CANFIELD <andy_canfield at HOTMAIL.COM>
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Sent: Tue,  5 Oct 2004 20:17:18 -0400
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver CGI question


> Thanks guys. I think the XML would work just fine for me. I'll give that a
> go. The requests going to the mapserver CGI are from a wireless phone
> application so I can't use Java script in a web page or anything in a web
> page really. But I can parse XML and anything else an http connection can
> return. So basically unless I want to write my own CGI that extends
> Mapserver I'm stuck with the very basic basic CGI functionality of
> Mapserver. Which is a lot of functionality but it's feels constraining after
> using mapserver through it's php scripting interface.
> 
> 
> >From: "Ryan, Adam" <ARyan at co.linn.or.us>
> >To: ANDY CANFIELD <andy_canfield at HOTMAIL.COM>,
> >MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> >Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver CGI question
> >Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 16:11:23 -0700
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: ANDY CANFIELD [mailto:andy_canfield at HOTMAIL.COM]
> > > Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2004 2:56 PM
> > > To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> > > Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver CGI question
> > >
> > >
> > > Is there a way to pass Mapserver the base CGI ( not using it
> > > as a wms ) some parameter and have it not return an image but
> > > instead return information about the mapfile like the
> > > available layer names, current extents and that sort of thing?
> > >
> > > sort of along the lines of (psuedo code)
> > >
> >http://mySite.com/cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=myMap.map&mode=info&infotype=Layer
> >names
> >
> >Andy,
> >
> >This may not be what your looking for, but you might be able to use
> >javascript in a generic legend template such that it would grab all
> >available tags, test for null, and spit out a report.  I havn't tried this
> >but I have used javascript to process the sent parameters in a legend
> >template and I would think this is possible, though time consuming.
> >
> >It would be cheating slightly, but you'd then
> >do...?map=myMap.map&mode=legend&map_legend_template=report.htm
> >
> >Maybe?
> >
> >Adam
> 
> 
> >From: "Kralidis,Tom [Burlington]" <Tom.Kralidis at ec.gc.ca>
> >To: "ANDY CANFIELD"
> ><andy_canfield at HOTMAIL.COM>,<MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU>
> >Subject: RE: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver CGI question
> >Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2004 18:56:37 -0400
> >
> >
> >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: UMN MapServer Users List
> > > [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On Behalf Of ANDY CANFIELD
> > > Sent: Tuesday, 05 October, 2004 17:56
> > > To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
> > > Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver CGI question
> > >
> > >
> > > Is there a way to pass Mapserver the base CGI ( not using it
> > > as a wms ) some parameter and have it not return an image but
> > > instead return information about the mapfile like the
> > > available layer names, current extents and that sort of thing?
> > >
> >
> >One option is to produce a web template as an XML document, i.e.:
> >
> ><mapinfo>
> >  <extent>
> >    <bbox minx="[minx]" miny="[miny" maxx="[maxx]" maxy="[maxy]"/>
> >  </extent>
> >...
> ></mapinfo>
> >
> >..and have MapServer CGI return the XML document, which you can do
> >whatever you please with.
> >
> >..Tom
> >
> > > sort of along the lines of (psuedo code)
> > >
> >http://mySite.com/cgi-bin/mapserv.exe?map=myMap.map&mode=info&infotype=L
> >ayernames
> >
> 
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