tile4ms <meta-file> <tile-file> [-tile-path-only]
<meta-file>     INPUT  file containing list of shapefile names
                (complete paths 255 chars max, no extension)
<tile-file>     OUTPUT shape file of extent rectangles and names
                of tiles in <tile-file>.dbf
-tile-path-only Optional flag.  If specified then only the path to the
                shape files will be stored in the LOCATION field
                instead of storing the full filename.

create tileindex.shp for all tiles under the /path/to/data directory:

   <on Unix> 
 
cd /path/to/data
find . -name "/*.shp" -print > metafile.txt
tile4ms metafile.txt tileindex

   <on Windows>   

dir /b /s *.shp > metafile.txt
tile4ms metafile.txt tileindex

This example uses TIGER Census data, where the data contains files divided up by county (in fact there are over 3200 counties, a very large dataset indeed). In this example we will show how to display all lakes for the state of Minnesota. (note that here we have already converted the TIGER data into shapefile format, but you could keep the data in TIGER format and use the ogrtindex utility instead) The TIGER Census data for Minnesota is made up of 87 different counties, each containing its own lakes file (‘wp.shp’).

1. We need to create the ‘meta-file’ for the tile4ms command. This is a text file of the paths to all ‘wp.shp’ files for the MN state. To create this file we can use a few simple commands:

   DOS: dir wp.shp /b /s > wp_list.txt
   (this includes full paths to the data, you might want to edit the txt 
   file to remove the full path)
   
   UNIX: find -name *wp.shp -print > wp_list.txt
   

   The newly created file might look like the following (after removing the full path):

   001\wp.shp
   003\wp.shp
   005\wp.shp
   007\wp.shp
   009\wp.shp
   011\wp.shp
   013\wp.shp
   015\wp.shp
   017\wp.shp
   019\wp.shp
   . . .
   

2. Execute the tile4ms command with the newly created meta-file to create the index file:

   tile4ms wp_list.txt index
     Processed 87 of 87 files
   

3. A new file named ‘index.shp’ is created. This is the index file with the MBRs of all ‘wp.shp’ files for the entire state, as shown in Figure1. The attribute table of this file contains a field named ‘LOCATION’, that contains the path to each ‘wp.shp file’, as shown in Figure2.

   Figure 1: Index file created by tile4ms utility

   

   Figure 2: Attributes of index file created by tile4ms utility

   

4. The final step is to use this in your mapfile.

   • LAYER object’s TILEINDEX - must point to the location of the index file
   • LAYER object’s TILEITEM - specify the name of the field in the index file containing the paths (default is ‘location’)
   • do not need to use the LAYER’s DATA parameter

   For example:

   LAYER
     NAME ‘mn-lakes’
     STATUS ON
     TILEINDEX "index"
     TILEITEM "location"
     TYPE POLYGON
     CLASS
       NAME "mn-lakes"
       STYLE
         COLOR 0 0 255
       END
     END
   END
   

   When you view the layer in a MapServer application, you will notice that when you are zoomed into a small area of the state only those lakes layers are loaded, which speeds up the application.