MapServer, MapScript, MacPorts

For anyone wishing to get into MapServer and serve shapefiles via PHP and also use a Mac with MacPorts for local development, here is how to compile. I discovered the hard way that the MacPorts port for MapServer is horribly dated and DOES NOT include PHP-MapScript. Compile instructions below assume you already have the php5 MacPort.

Install some dependencies if you haven't already got them:

sudo port install php5-gd
sudo port install xpm
sudo port install proj
sudo port install geos
sudo port install gdal

1. Download latest MapServer tarball, http://mapserver.org/download.html (e.g. at time of writing http://download.osgeo.org/mapserver/mapserver-5.6.5.tar.gz)
2. Extract and cd into folder
3. Execute from command line:

$ ./configure \
--prefix=/usr \
--with-agg \
--with-proj=/opt/local \
--with-geos=/opt/local/bin/geos-config \
--with-gdal=/opt/local/bin/gdal-config \
--with-threads \
--with-ogr \
--without-tiff \
--with-freetype=/opt/local \
--with-xpm=/opt/local \
--with-png=/opt/local \
--with-jpeg=/opt/local \
--with-gd=/opt/local \
--with-wfs \
--with-wcs \
--with-wmsclient \
--with-wfsclient \
--with-sos \
--with-fribidi-config \
--with-experimental-png \
--with-php=/opt/local

4. Execute from command line: $ make
5. Verify that mapserv is working by executing ./mapserv -v
6. Find php_mapscript.so in mapscripts/php3 and move to PHP extensions directory (usually /opt/local/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20090626/ for MacPorts). You may also need to add php_mapscript.so to your php.ini.
7. Move mapserv into cgi-bin folder for web server and give permission to execute if desire using it directly (optional)

If MacPorts's GDAL were similarly updated to v. 1.7.3, you could use GeoRSS data just as you would use shapefiles. But, alas, at the time of writing, the version in MacPorts is v. 1.6.2.

While we're on the mapping kick, here is a very excellent source of shapefiles: http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

...and a bit of PHP code to consume GeoRSS using the Magpie RSS library. The author uses some deprecated PHP functions in places, but it is nonetheless quite useful.