Drawing specific layers of mapfile with MapScript?

Question

Is it possible to call a draw on a mapFile with a list of layers to include with mapScript? I have a bunch of layers defined on my mapfile but I don't want to call all of them. I don't use "STATUS DEFAULT", i would like to call specifics layers like we can do with the get parameters, for example: "LAYERS=LAYER1,LAYER2,LAYER3&...."

For now this is my code.

$oMapFinal = ms_newMapObj($filename) or die("die\n");
$oMapImageFinal = $oMapFinal->draw();

Answer 1

With PHP-MapScript, you can get all layer names as an array. You can make an array of the layers wish to enable, using the layer name.

This is not the most elegant solution, and there is likely a better method supported through the API, but quick and dirty you can just step through the entire list of layers and disable them and only enable the ones you want.

Step through both arrays, disabling all layer, but enabling if there is a match in the array containing the lists you wish to enable.

$enableLayers = ["LAYER1","LAYER2","LAYER3"];
$allLayers = $oMapFinal->getAllLayerNames();

foreach ($allLayers as $evalLayer)
{
   $layer = $oMapFinal->getLayerByName($evalLayer);
   $layer->updateFromString("STATUS MS_OFF");

   foreach ($enableLayers as $setLayer)
   {
      if ($setLayer === $evalLayer)
      {
         $layer->updateFromString("STATUS MS_ON");
      }
   }
}

Then call your draw statement.

Let me know if that works, I just templated that code without any testing.