Using the EXPRESSION option sounds like a good idea to me. You can take it a step further to have dynamic random colors instead of the static scheme you speak of. You could import the data into PostGIS. Then, you can probably construct a clever SELECT statement that uses PostgreSQL / PostGIS functions to generate a column containing random numbers. Of course it might be tricky to have the random numbers dynamic on a per session basis.
Good luck. -Abe On 4/21/06, Brent Pedersen <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > hi, > > with a map of the world with country boundaries and > using only the mapserver CGI, is it possible to have the countries > filled with one of ~5 different colors. either at random or > uniformly. is there a way to do this in the mapfile without relying > on attributes in the shapefile? > > my fallback solution will be to add a column in the .shp and assign > number 1 - 5 to each country and use that in a map file EXPRESSION. i > thought maybe there was another means i was missing. something like > an automatic alternating color scheme... to help me do less work. > > thanks, > -brent >
