[mapserver-users] how to access dbf files?

[Michael Schulz]

Hello,

could somebody give me a hint on what would be to "right" way to access
attribute information from a dbf file using mapscript.

I am a little bit confused since there seem to be variuos ways to do so.
php/mapscript obviously uses its own dbf functionality, perl/mapscript
uses sometimes the xbase module but also the DBFInfo object that can be
accessed directly from mapscript. For python/mapscript i rewrote the
perl/mapscript sample shpinfo.pl to a shpinfo.py using msDBF...
functions and the DBFInfo object.  But i experienced pretty often that
these functions were rather unstable (lot of segfaults when doing
writes). Then i switched to the dbf functions that come with the
pyshapelib.

Is this confusion real and are there changes to this subject going on,
or is there no "normal" mapscript way to do so and each language
adresses this issue differently?

TIA, Michael

--
-----------------------------------------------------------
Michael Schulz                                in medias res
Dipl.-Geologe                              Gesellschaft für
                                Informationstechnologie mbH
                             Sautierstr. 38, 79104 Freiburg
                                     0761 55695-95 (Fax 96)
mschulz@webgis.de                             www.webgis.de