Skip to Content
Web Mapping Illustrated
book

Web Mapping Illustrated

by Tyler Mitchell
June 2005
Beginner to intermediate
372 pages
10h 1m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Web Mapping Illustrated

Chapter 14. Custom Programming with MapServer's MapScript

If you have programming experience, you may want to do more to customize MapServer, incorporating MapServer capabilities directly into a custom application. Enter MapScript, an application program interface for MapServer.

Introducing MapScript

MapScript exposes the functionality of MapServer to various scripting languages. This reduces programming time for developers who want to add mapping capabilities to an application. Rather than create a custom method for mapping, the MapScript API provides some powerful tools that are robust and ready to use. It also provides a convenient way to interact with mapping data while still using your favorite programming language.

MapScript allows you to load, manipulate, and create map files. For example, you can change layer settings, manipulate map file classes, produce output images, export spatial data, and much more. Because it uses common scripting environments, MapScript functions can be combined with other functions of that language.

Several languages have MapScript support; PHP, Python, Perl, Java and Ruby are readily available. C# and TCL support are under development as well, and these are also included in the MapServer source code tree.

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

The Design of Web APIs

The Design of Web APIs

Arnaud Lauret
PostGIS in Action, Second Edition

PostGIS in Action, Second Edition

Regina O. Obe, Leo S. Hsu

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596008651Errata Page