TorontoCodeSprint2009Notes

== Agenda ==

See http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Toronto_Code_Sprint_2009_Agenda#Mapserver

== Minutes, Actions, Decisions ==

=== 1. XML mapfiles ===

• A draft RFC is at http://mapserver.org/development/rfc/ms-rfc-51.html
• There are concerns about the use of the CWXML library and the benefits of a binary encoded format
• The need we are trying to address is the ability to build MapFile Editors that would be facilitated by the existence of a XML mapfile format (since the current mapfile format makes it impossible to write a forward-compatible parser)
• There are concerns about having to support another set of parsing functions. Just keeping the existing mapfile.x read/write functions in sync is already a challenge, so adding another set of reader/writer functions for XML will just make this worse.
• Conclusion: After discussion, it was decided that for the time being we should '''develop a XML schema and a XSLT to convert from XML to text mapfile'''. If the new XML format takes off then we may consider implementing support for it directly in MapServer in a future release.

=== 2. Graphical rendering ===

• Discussion of the approach of rendering plugins
• Conclusions???

=== 3. Attribute type handling (for WFS) ===

• Ticket: http://trac.osgeo.org/mapserver/ticket/462
• An itemObj structure has already been added to mapprimitive.h. We agree that this is the way to go, the C code should be updated to use itemObj instead of the array of itemnames, etc.
• A RFC would be required for this.

=== 4. Metadata and processing directives abuse ===

• What can we do about this?
• Conclusion: at least moving the OWS-related metadata to a separate OWS/END block (hashtable) would help.
• We'll need to maintain backwards compatibility for existing mapfiles that have their ows_* metadata in the METADATA/END block. The way it would be handled is that if a OWS/END block is present that it takes priority and all lookups happen in that hashtable only, otherwise we fallback on the metadata hashtable for all lookups.
• A RFC will be required for this.

=== 5. Mechanism to enable/hide/ignore layers in OGC Web Services ===

• See the use cases page at [wiki:HidingLayersInOGCWebServices]
• One suggestion was to use a set of OWS + SERVICE blocks in the layer definition, e.g.

  LAYER                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
    ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
    OWS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
       SERVICE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
         TYPE WMS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
         REQUESTS ALL # ALL, ONE, or specific request to accept for this layer                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
         "key1" "value1"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
         "key2" "value2"                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
       END                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
       SERVICE                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            
         TYPE WFS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         
         REQUESTS ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
         ...                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              
       END                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
    END                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   
  END                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          

== Breakout Sections ==

• [wiki:TorontoCodeSprint2009_Documentation Documentation]