MapServer CGI Introduction

Notes

• Variable names are not case sensitive.
• In cases where multiple values are associated with a variable (eg. mapext), the values must be seperated by spaces (or their escaped equivalents for GET requests).
• Variable contents are checked for appropriate data types and magnitude as they are loaded.
• Any CGI Variable not listed below is simply stored and can be referenced within a template file.

Changes

From MapServer version 4.x to version 5.x

• Modifying map parameters through a URL has changed to allow for chunks of a mapfile to be modified at once. The syntax has changed accordingly, so please see the Changing map file parameters via a form or a URL section.

From MapServer version 3.x to version 4.x

• New way to perform attribute queries: No longer do you set a layer filter, but rather you pass a query string (and optionally an query item) to the query function. To do this 2 new CGI parameters were added to MapServer: QSTRING and QITEM.
• SAVEMAP is switched off: The SAVEMAP functionality is considered insecure, since the saved files are accessible by everyone.
• TEMPLATE has been removed, since the map_web_template syntax can be used to alter a template file. Simplifies security maintenance by only having to deal with this option in a single place. Note that the TEMPLATEPATTERN of the mapfile has to be used to enable this feature.