Extending the Capabilities of MapScript with MySQL

Summary

This chapter has consolidated your understanding of elementary MapServer and MapScript, and provided an introduction to the more sophisticated concept of MapScript spatial queries. Of course, you’ve barely scratched the surface—MapScript queries aren’t limited to the simple point queries described in this chapter—all the query modes described in Chapter 5 are available to MapScript. Nevertheless, the foundation you’ve built is a solid one—the more complex query modes are accessed in much the same way as the NQUERY mode you’ve used here. The next step will be incremental rather than a great leap.

You’ve also seen how to extend MapScript’s capabilities by incorporating MySQL functionality into a spatially aware application. PHP, Perl, and Python all possess numerous other specialpurpose libraries that provide additional functionality—and these can be used in conjunction with MapScript in the same manner as MySQL. MapScript has supplied you with a powerful new tool—how you use it will be up to you.