PHP/Mapscript, apache2, mod_php - What is the status?

[Stephen Woodbridge]

Benjamin Wragg wrote:
> Hi Steve,
>  
> Sorry to email you off the list but I was wondering if you got any 
> answers to your mapserver question about  "PHP/Mapscript, apache2, 
> mod_php - What is the status?" I also am interested in where things are at.
>  
> Cheers,
> 
> Benjamin Wragg

Benjamin,

I never got any answer to this on list. It would be nice if there was a 
plan to  change the code to be more thread safe, but my guess is that 
will not happen without additional funding.

The mapserver website has the following:

   http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/howto/verboselinuxinstall

It seems to configure PHP5/Mapscript and apache2, but does not talk 
about thread safety and interestingly it does not configure Mapserver 
with --use_threads. I think DM Solutions would have to address any 
issues specific to PHP/Mapscript.

Sean Gillies did a lot of work on thread safety (as did others) and wrote:

   http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/docs/faq/thread_safety

This document also lays out what some of the major areas (Mapserver 
parser, PROJ, GDAL, DB Connection pooling) that could be improved to be 
more thread safe without putting coarse locks around those areas.

-Steve