.. rfc38:

******************************************************************************
	MS RFC 38: Native Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Driver for MapServer
******************************************************************************

:Author: Howard Butler
:Contact: hobu.inc at gmail.com
:Revision: $Revision$
:Date: $Date$
:Status: Implemented
:Version: 5.2
:Id: $Id$

==============================================================================
Purpose
==============================================================================

To provide a read-only, native MapServer driver that connects to Microsoft
SQL Server 2008 (henceforth called SQL Server) on Windows as a PLUGIN 
datasource driver.

==============================================================================
Background
==============================================================================

I.S. Consulting has donated a native driver modeled on the PostGIS driver 
to support SQL Server 2008's newly added spatial capabilities.  This new 
driver will only be available on the Windows platform, and it will only 
be available as a PLUGIN datasource driver.  No additional enumerations or 
conditional includes will be added to the MapServer codebase to support this 
driver.

==============================================================================
Usage Details
==============================================================================

The driver is a PLUGIN layer, and uses the PLUGIN syntax described in RFC 8 [1]
to define relevant layer information:

::

  LAYER
    NAME "Roads"
    CONNECTIONTYPE PLUGIN
    PLUGIN "C:\ms4w\plugins\msplugin_mssql2008.dll"

    CONNECTION "server=mysqlserver2008.com;uid=dbusername;pwd=dbpassword;database=Roads Database;Integrated Security=false"
    
    DATA "the_geom from roads"
    TYPE LINE

    STATUS ON

    PROJECTION
	"init=epsg:4326"
    END
    
    CLASS
      STYLE
         COLOR 0 0 255
         WIDTH 8
       END
    END 

  END
   
==============================================================================
Files Affected
==============================================================================

A single file, mapmssql2008.c will be added to subversion.  It will only be 
compiled on windows using the 'nmake /f makefile.vc plugins' command when 
options describing the ODBC libraries are switched on.

==============================================================================
Backward Compatibility Issues
==============================================================================

All work described in this RFC will provide optional capabilities to MapServer 
and no backward compatibility issues are expected.

==============================================================================
Documentation
==============================================================================

This RFC will stand as primary documentation for the feature until such time 
as the methods and practices described in this document are integrated into 
the regular MapServer documentation framework. 

==============================================================================
Intellectual Property
==============================================================================

This work will become a regular part of MapServer and will be released under 
MapServer's open source license.

[1] http://mapserver.gis.umn.edu/development/rfc/ms-rfc-8/