Important notes when upgrading to MS4W 5 from MS4W 4

REQUIREMENTS.txt

• always first follow the instructions in the file /ms4w/REQUIREMENTS.txt to install the updated "Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable" on your server

ms4w.conf

• as of MS4W 5, you must configure the new /ms4w/ms4w.conf file, as the MapServer 8.0 release tightened security for the MAP= parameter
  • Apache and MS4W's commandline tools have been configured to use that config file
• see Securing Your MS4W Installation
• when enabling FastCGI, you must also point to ms4w.conf by setting the MAPSERVER_CONFIG_FILE variable in your httpd.conf file, such as:

    <IfModule fcgid_module>
      FcgidMinProcessesPerClass 0
      FcgidIdleScanInterval 1
      FcgidProcessLifeTime 10
      FcgidInitialEnv MAPSERVER_CONFIG_FILE "/ms4w/ms4w.conf"
   </IfModule>
  
  

• to enable the Microsoft SQL Server plugin (see steps), you must be sure to add a PLUGINS section to ms4w.conf, such as:

    PLUGINS
      "mssql" "/ms4w/msplugins/mssql/msplugin_mssql2008.dll"
    END 
  

SWIG MapScript

PHP

• test PHP MapScript at the commandline by executing:

  setenv.bat
  php -dextension=C:/ms4w/Apache/php/ext/php_mapscript.dll -r "echo msGetVersion();"
  

• as of MS4W 5.0, there is no external file to include in your PHP scripts (the constants and functions are wrapped inside the MapScript PHP extension instead)
• see the updated example scripts here on the Wiki, such as:
  • query example: MS4W 5.x
  • new layer example (create WMS layer & setting metadata, create polygon layer + opacity, create point layer): MS4W 5.x
  • WMS wrapper example: MS4W 5.x
  • setOpacity() example: MS4W 5.x
• quickmap.php has also been updated (see locally at /ms4w/Apache/htdocs/quickmap.php)
• be aware that with the MapServer 8 release, many deprecated things have been removed and will now throw an error. For example, there is no longer a setMetaData() function for a Layer (or a getMetaData() function), in ​SWIG MapScript. Instead we must access the 'metadata' hashTableObj keys and values directly, here is a working example:

  <?php
    //set metadata using the new 'metadata' hashTableObj keys and value directly
    $oWMSLayer->metadata->set("wms_name", "popplace");
    $oWMSLayer->metadata->set("wms_title", "Cities");
    $oWMSLayer->metadata->set("wms_srs", "EPSG:3978");
    $oWMSLayer->metadata->set("wms_server_version", "1.1.1");
    $oWMSLayer->metadata->set("wms_format", "image/png");
    //set the PROCESSING directive on the layer (not beneficial for WMS layers, but useful for database layers, so set here only as an example)
    $oDBLayer->setProcessingKey("CLOSE_CONNECTION", "DEFER");
    //get LAYER metadata using the new 'metadata' hashTableObj keys directly
    echo $oWMSLayer->metadata->get("wms_title");
    //get WEB object metadata
    echo $oMap->web->metadata->get("wms_title");
  ?>
  

Python

• test Python MapScript at the commandline by executing:

  setenv.bat
  python -c "import mapscript; print (mapscript.msGetVersion())"
  

• quickmap.py has been included in /ms4w/msplugins/mapscript/python/ (follow the instructions at top of file)
• the GDAL Python utilities can be called at the commandline such as:

    setenv.bat
    gdal_merge --help
    gdal2tiles --help
  

• test the GDAL Python module at the commandline by executing:

    setenv.bat
    python -c "from osgeo import gdal;print(gdal.__version__)"
  

• upgrade pip

    setenv.bat
    python -m pip install --upgrade pip
  

PROJ

• Apache's conf & setenv.bat now set the environment variable PROJ_DATA to PROJ's new location:

    \ms4w\share\proj
  

  If your mapfiles set a PROJ_DATA (which is not recommended, as MS4W's Apache does this for you) you will have to update your PROJ_DATA value
• MS4W 5.0 includes PROJ 9, which (since PROJ 8) contains many changes:
  • since the PROJ 9.1 release, for the former PROJ_LIB variable has been replaced with PROJ_DATA
  • allowing to dynamically pull in various grids, to improve accuracy
    • see settings in /ms4w/share/proj/proj.ini
    • since we are involved in displaying maps over the internet, we should likely have these grids locally on the server
      • execute the following to install the grids (into /ms4w/share/proj/)

          setenv.bat
          proj-install-grids.bat
        

  • all EPSG codes are stored in proj.db, an SQLite database, stored in /ms4w/share/proj/, instead of the former epsg text file

Removed Mapfile Parameters

The following (formerly deprecated) popular mapfile parameters will now cause errors in your MS4W 5.x mapfile, so you MUST REMOVE them:

1. DUMP TRUE

Instead, you can configure querying of your layer by using METADATA instead, such as:

LAYER
  ...
  METADATA
    "wms_title"         "Populated Places"
    "wms_include_items" "all"
    "gml_include_items" "all"
    "gml_featureid"     "ogc_fid"	
  END #metadata
  ...
END #layer

2. OPACITY at the LAYER-level

Instead it must be inside a ​COMPOSITE object:

LAYER
  ...
  COMPOSITE
    OPACITY 40
  END #composite
END #layer

3. COLOR at the CLASS-level

Instead it must be inside the class' ​STYLE object:

LAYER
  ...
  CLASS
    ...
    STYLE
      COLOR 120 120 120
    END #style
  END #class
END #layer

see the ​full list of removed parameters

map2img

The former shp2img commandline utility has been renamed to ​map2img.