Which is the best way to work with PostGIS and OpenLayers?

Question

I have a postgresql db table with a City table that has a geography field with the city coordinates.

I have made a php page that loops through these records, converts geo field in latit/longit and draws a marker in an OpenLayers map to the city during an ajax call.

I don't know if this is the correct way to do it: is there a way to directly bind the sql query to the map without having to loop? Is there a more direct relation between the database and the OpenLayers maps?

Answer 1

I am not sure about what is the software stack that you are using, but usually, OpenLayers do not work directly with PostGIS.

A common configuration is PostGIS -> GeoServer -> OpenLayers

GeoServer will get your data from the database (or many other sources) and publish it in a valid format for openlayers like wms.

For more specific questions you can post your question in https://gis.stackexchange.com/