Mapserver Web service questions

[Ed McNierney]

Andy -

"Web service" is a pretty loose term; do you have specific interface
constraints (i.e. a particular interface model, etc.)?  MapServer
natively supports the OGC Web Map Service (WMS) that provides a very
nice, simple way to make an HTTP GET request that returns a image file
in the requested format.  Such a request can be easily used in, for
example, the "src=" property of an <IMG> tag on the requesting page.  It
can, of course, also be used in more complex environments where the
client/requester is a different sort of application than a simple HTML
viewer.

        - Ed

Ed McNierney
President and Chief Mapmaker
TopoZone.com / Maps a la carte, Inc.
73 Princeton Street, Suite 305
North Chelmsford, MA  01863
ed at topozone.com
(978) 251-4242  

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU] On
Behalf Of ANDY CANFIELD
Sent: Wednesday, September 15, 2004 10:45 AM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Mapserver Web service questions

To anyone who may know,
        Can Mapserver be used like a web service?
Here is my situation. I have a small device that I want to show maps on.
There are two ways I can do this as the device has a browser I can make
a small web page for it, or to give it more functionality I can write an
embeded app that displays maps from a web service.

So what I need to know is can Mapserver be used like a web service or do
I need to write a web service that acts as the interface to Mapserver?

I am using Mapserver for Windows and currently it's set up with php
Mapscript for my web maps.
If I can use Mapserver as a service can I use the same one I'm running
php Mapscript against?

If not and I write a service is it safe to target the same Mapserver as
php is using via it's Mapscript interface?

If it helps any the device sending the requests will be a Nextel
Blackberry.
The language of the app sitting on the device will be J2ME ( Java Micro
Edition ). The service itself if I have to write one will be in C++.

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Andy

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