Mapserver Usage

[Giridhar Manepalli]

Hello All,
I am working on a project in which one of the application produces some
information viz., location of agents, each agents characteristics(age,
health etc) into a database(PostGresql). The location of agents is in the
form of
PostGIS Supportive Spatial Data format. The agents produced by the
application belong to a area whose shapefile is available.

I appreciate a lot if someone can throw some light on the following:-

How can I dynamically produce a map using mapserver, so that I can grab the
agent data from the Database and display it(This includes the agent
characterisitics as mentioned above)?

It would be helpful to me, if you can point out some general/specific
guidelines for achieving the same. Also, a pointers to similar applications,
especially one which integrates querying on agent characteristics, if I am
not asking too much.

Thanks,
Giridhar