truetype character as polygon fill rendered without space

[Maul, Andreas-Alexander]

Hi,
as pointed out in the documentation "Construction of Cartographic
Symbols" 
lines can be decorated with truetype symbols, e.g. with a symbol
definition as
SYMBOL
  NAME "tilde"
  TYPE TRUETYPE
  FONT "arial"
  CHARACTER "~"
  ANTIALIAS TRUE
  GAP 10
END

If I use the same definition to fill polygon areas with this signature, 
the keyword gap (and angle too) is ignored, i.e. the characters are 
arranged without space. Is it planned to extend the gap keyword that it
is 
usable also for areas?

PS. I use mapserver 4.4.1 and Windows XP but same behaviour with 
mapserver 4.6 has been told

Regards,
Andreas