.. _rfc27:

======================================================================
MS RFC 27: Label Priority
======================================================================

:Date: 2007/05/22
:Author: Daniel Morissette
:Contact: dmorissette at mapgears.com
:Last Edited: 2007/06/29
:Status: Adopted (2007/05/25) - Implementation completed (2007/07/05)
:Version: MapServer 5.0

Overview
--------

MapServer 4.10 and older used a last in first out (LIFO) mechanism to plot 
labels on a map. This resulted in excessive use of ANNOTATION layers to make 
certain labels more prominent. This RFC introduces a new PRIORITY parameter 
on the LABEL object to control the order in which labels are rendered.

Technical Solution
------------------

PRIORITY is a new LABEL parameter that takes an integer value between 1 
(lowest) and MS_MAX_LABEL_PRIORITY (highest). The default value is 1.

MS_MAX_LABEL_PRIORITY is defined and can be altered in map.h, its default 
value is 10.

The prioritization is handled by maintaining an array of MS_MAX_LABEL_PRIORITY 
cache lists in the label cache. When a label is added to the label cache, 
its priority index is used to decide in which cache list it should be added.

Then at rendering time, we loop through the cache lists, starting with the 
highest priority list.

Specifying an out of range PRIORITY value inside a map file will result in a 
parsing error. An out of range value set via MapScript or coming from a shape 
attribute will be clamped to the min/max values in msAddLabel().

There is no expected impact on performance for using label priorities.

Support for attribute binding
-----------------------------

The PRIORITY parameter can also be bound to an attribute using the attribute 
bindings mechanism defined in RFC-19. This means two ways to set LABEL 
PRIORITY:

::

  ...
  LABEL
    PRIORITY 5
    ...
  END
  ...

or

::

  ...
  LABEL
    PRIORITY [someattribute]
    ...
  END
  ...


Modifications to the source code
--------------------------------

* PRIORITY will be added to the LABEL object in map.h, in the mapfile 
  parser/writer (mapfile.c) and in MapScript

* A MS_IS_VALID_LABEL_PRIORITY() macro will be defined to validate 
  priority ranges in a consistent way everywhere.

* The label cache code (maplabel.c) will be modified to work with an 
  array of MS_MAX_LABEL_PRIORITY cache lists instead of a single list

* The various msDrawLabelCacheXX() functions will be modified to replace the 
  current loop on cache items with two nested loops: the outer loop will 
  iterate on cache lists (from highest to lowest), and the inner loop will 
  iterate on the cache items inside each list.

* msBindLayerToShape() will be updated to support binding PRIORITY to a 
  shape attribute field.

MapScript Implications
----------------------

The labelObj will have a new priority property of type integer.

Files affected
--------------

::

 map.h
 mapfile.c
 maplabel.c
 maputil.c
 mapgd.c        (msDrawLabelCacheGD)
 mapimagemap.c  (msDrawLabelCacheIM)
 mappdf.c       (msDrawLabelCachePDF)
 mapsvg.c       (msDrawLabelCacheSVG)
 mapswf.c       (msDrawLabelCacheSWF)
 mapagg.cpp     (msDrawLabelCacheAGG)

Backwards compatibility issues
------------------------------

None.

Bug ID
------

* 1619: https://github.com/mapserver/mapserver/issues/1619

* Bug 206 also made mention of label priority but has been closed as 
  duplicate of 1619: https://github.com/mapserver/mapserver/issues/206

Voting history
--------------

Vote completed on 2007-05-25:

+1 from DanielM, SteveW, SteveL, YAssefa, UmbertoN and FrankW

Questions/Comments from the review period
-----------------------------------------

* Q: Why use an array of cache lists instead of doing a quicksort on all 
  cache entries?  
  
  A: Mainly for performance reason, but it was also pointed out that 
  quicksort is not stable and could result in different orderings 
  depending on the set of labels.
