raster layer and tileindex

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Don,

The rules for paths with tileindexes are straight forward (well were
not, I haven't looked to see if they have changed since I last raised an
issue about them).

Ideally, one would like to think of a tileindex as representing a tree
of data that is modular. Like an object that can be instantiated into
multiple maps. Or moved around within a data directory tree without have
to rebuild the tileindexes with every move.

So also requires clear rules about how the DATAPATH, DATA, TILEINDEX,
and the path in the tileindex interact with one another when they are
either absolute or relative paths. If this is not clear please write a
bug against documentation on the mapfile reference to make this clear.

Here is what I think the rules SHOULD be:

1) if DATA or TILEINDEX path is abosulte then look for the DATA or
TILEINDEX at that location
2) if DATA or TILEINDEX path is relative then absolute it to the
DATAPATH and look for the DATA or TILEINDEX at that location
3) if the contents of the TILEINDEX are absolute, then use that path
4) if the contents of the TILEINDEX are relative, then append it to the
location of the TILEINDEX file
5) if a relative DATA path item also exists in a LAYER with a TILEINDEX,
then append it also the the contents of the TILEINDEX
6) if it is absolute DATA path item also exists in a LAYER ignore it as
this has not logical connotation or raise an error.

Note: 5) is important if you have a TILEINDEX that represents an area
like a county, and you want to use the DATA to select the layer data
from a county, so I might have

TILEINDEX "tiger/counties"
DATA "street"
   that generates paths like:
tiger/counties/01/001/street

and

TILEINDEX "tiger/counties"
DATA "landmarks"
   that generates paths like:
tiger/counties/01/001/landmarks

I opened this bug on this in sept 2002
http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/bugs/show_bug.cgi?id=204

-Steve W.

Don Deskins wrote:
> Frank,
>
> Thanks for your reply.
>
> I found my answer in a previous post titled "Moving TILEINDEX in a
> subfolder" on Mar 31.  I had tried to have the raster layer in a
> subdirectory by itself... evidently, this will not work.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Don
>