Foundation and Mapserver MAP file manag e tool

[Norman Barker]

-----Original Message-----
From: UMN MapServer Users List [mailto:MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU]On
Behalf Of Jeroen Ticheler
Sent: Thursday, December 15, 2005 11:19 AM
To: MAPSERVER-USERS at LISTS.UMN.EDU
Subject: Re: [UMN_MAPSERVER-USERS] Foundation and Mapserver MAP file
manag e tool


Fully support this! I'm also looking for a DTD/schema that can  
produce valid Map files.

MapServer may have to be modified in some parts to make sure it is  
consistent throughout when running map services based on files  
created by the schema.

Also OGC specific parts have to be included in such schema to make  
sure we can quickly generate valid map files with OGC WMS/WCS and WFS  
support.

I would like to use such such schema to create XSL transformations of  
metadata (ISO19115) stored in GeoNetwork opensource to generate map  
files for data producing OGC services (even on the fly).

I would also use it to do XSL transformations of AXL documents I  
export from ArcMap using the MXD2AXL I developed to create map files  
straight out of ArcMap.

Ciao,
Jeroen

On 15 Dec 2005, at 00:01, Bob Basques wrote:

> Steve,
>
> Ok, now we're talking, XML!! Yeah, I even have a body here I can  
> put to work on something like this with some direction from the  
> rest of the community.
>
><snip>

Hi,

I have been using XML / XSL for a while to create map files for our services.  From my experience it is easier to use a database (hypersonic is very light) or MySQL and then use the SQL extensions for stylesheets (http://xml.apache.org/xalan-j/extensionslib.html) this broadens the applications of this technology, e.g. you could have web app updating the database, eclipse reading either the database or xml file or 'data objects'.  Whilst a schema enforces the correctness of an XML file, it doesn't support the transactional features of a database, allowing you to rollback etc.

XSL is definitely the way to go though (IMHO), it is easy to use and learn.

Norman