Using a SHP file attribute as a MapFile Object value

[bob.basques@…]

Example:

LAYER
  NAME 'cities'
  DATA '<path to data>'
  STATUS DEFAULT
  CLASSITEM 'MUNI_NAME'
  CLASS
    OUTLINECOLOR 207 50 150
    COLOR '<value of MUNI_NAME column above>'
    SIZE 2
    SYMBOL 'circle'
  END
END

[sdlime]

Size and angle already have item-based support within styleObjs. Those are 
supported because:

1) they are potentially double values that often vary by feature as direction 
and magnitude (whereas colors and symbol are far more limited)

2) someone paid for and hence accelerated their addition

I doubt we'll go any further with the current approach. You may see the style 
item concept supported by OGR also supported by non-OGR sources.

Steve