[mapserver-users] Feature wish: Internal mapfile variables

[Rahkonen Jukka]

Hi,

Inspired by the Thomas Bonfort's rendering chain I have been thinking if we could have a native support for using  internal mapfile variables.  Now Thomas is setting for example a bunch of colours in a definition file which is converted into a real mapfile with python script and c preprocessor. 
http://mapserver-utils.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/README
http://mapserver-utils.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/generate_style.py

I would like to see a simple way for setting the variables directly in the mapfile, somehow like 
MAP
SET "pedestrian_clr"  "#fafaf5"
SET "forest_clr" "#dcdcb4"
SET "industrial_clr" "#ebe5d9"
....

And then later in the layers use
LAYER
.....
COLOR %pedestrian_clr%

The internal variables could be interpreted only from the mapfile and they could not be altered by the web users.

Internal variable would help in maintaining big mapfiles with repeating styles like in the OpenStreetMap rendering case.  Another use case is when the same layers are re-used for several customers who like to have a bit different styling for the same source data.

-Jukka Rahkonen-


-Jukka Rahkonen-