PHP Map Obj Serialize

[Stuart Eve]

Dear all,

We are attempting to think of a way to provide a 'permalink' to a 
particular map object. In addition we would like to do a check to see if 
the server has already created that map (with its specific 
configuration) before and so just load up the cached png instead of 
recreating the png each time.

I realise we can save out the mapfile to a .txt file and then read it in 
- and compare it to all of the other mapfiles we have saved, but it 
seems like it may be a little processor heavy. We were hoping to save 
something out to a field in the MySQL table. We were thinking along the 
lines of a serialized array which could then be compared with the other 
cached arrays in the MySQL table and see if theres a match.

Our main problem, though, is that we can't unserialize a map object (as 
it loses all of its methods). Is there a way to unserialize the map 
object and make it function properly again as a map object or 
alternatively output the mapfile to a field in the database and then 
recreate the map object from that? Does the mapObj constructor only work 
from files?

We are using Mapserver 4.8 and PHPMapscript.

Thanks in advance

Stuart

-- 
Stuart Eve
L - P : Archaeology
stuarteve at lparchaeology.com