ASP.NET and mapscript - unable to load DLL

[Ian Erickson]

Following this thread, I had to ask the following question:

I know the mapping (and non-mapping) world is wrapped up in Google.  Is 
there any effort on the part of this community to write a pure 
Javascript library that mirrors the functionality present in the Google 
API?  I am aware of the ka-Map project but have not investigated it to 
the level to know whether or not a simple <div> element is enough to 
encapsulate the mapping interface.  Any hints or references to ongoing 
projects to this end would be appreciated!

A simple browser-generic Javascript API that leverages the capabilities 
of MapServer (rather than Google) could go a great distance in winning 
even wider support for the MapServer project.

Abe Gillespie wrote:

>Did you move mapscript.dll to system32 as well?  The only DLL that
>should be in your bin dir is mapscript_csharp.dll.
>
>Suggestions:
>1.  Write the mapfile by hand with the file streaming objects?
>2.  Wrap the MapServer CGI executable with ASP.NET (I think someone
>did just this some time ago).
>3.  If this is all you're doing, you *might* be able to get away with
>it in ASP.NET.  See if there's a way to protect a section of ASP.NET
>code with a semaphore or similar construct.  Is there something that
>protects in the virtual thread environment?
>
>-Abe
>
>On 8/19/05, Mike Boos <mboos at augsignals.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>I tried moving the dlls to the system32 directory, but that doesn't have
>>any effect (am I missing any other dependencies?)
>>
>>Unfortunately, I'm kind of stuck with ASP.NET, as that's what the rest
>>of the site relies upon. I'm trying to improve the present setup which
>>involves sending a request to a C++ CGI program which writes a map file
>>to the hard disk and forwards the request to mapserv.exe. If you'd ask
>>me, that's a bit of a kluge, and without Mapscript, all I could do to
>>improve on that would be to take out the C++ program and have the map
>>file generated from within the ASP.NET program itself. Can you think of
>>a better way to accomplish the same task?
>>
>>Mike
>>Abe Gillespie wrote:
>>
>>    
>>
>>>Placing the depended-on DLLs into the bin dir will do nothing.  I
>>>assume you're on a windows box.  Therefore the easiest way to take
>>>care of this is by placing all the DLLs (except for map_script) into
>>><windows>\system32 where <windows> is the system windows directory
>>>(c:\winnt, c:\windows, etc.).
>>>
>>>With that said, you're entering a world of pain by using C# map_script
>>>in ASP.NET.  Much of the map_script DLL is thread unsafe, that
>>>combined with ASP.NET's supremely weird threading model (e.g. virtual
>>>threads), you're going to encounter a plethora of problems.  This is
>>>why you almost never see MapServer + ASP.NET discussion threads.
>>>
>>>To get more info, search the archives.  You should find ten or so
>>>messages about this topic.
>>>
>>>-Abe
>>>
>>>On 8/18/05, Mike Boos <mboos at augsignals.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>>>Hello
>>>>
>>>>I'm trying to run Mapscript using the SWIG C# bindings on an ASP.NET
>>>>server. I compiled the 4.6.0 version of MapServer and have placed what I
>>>>believe to be the appropriate dependencies (mapscript_csharp.dll,
>>>>mapscript.dll, libmap.dll, bgd.dll, gdal12.dll, pdflib.dll) in the bin
>>>>directory on my server. It is appears to be finding
>>>>mapscript_csharp.dll, but is having trouble finding mapscript.dll or one
>>>>of its dependencies. I am seeing the following error message:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Server Error in '/' Application.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>   /Unable to load DLL (mapscript)./
>>>>
>>>>* Description: *An unhandled exception occurred during the execution of
>>>>the current web request. Please review the stack trace for more
>>>>information about the error and where it originated in the code.
>>>>
>>>>* Exception Details: *System.DllNotFoundException: Unable to load DLL
>>>>(mapscript).
>>>>
>>>>Am I missing a dependency? Or do I need to set some configuration option
>>>>or place the files elsewhere?
>>>>
>>>>Thanks!
>>>>Mike Boos
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>        
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>      
>>>
>>    
>>
>
>  
>

-- 
Ian Erickson
AnalyGIS, LLC
http:// www.analygis.com