Consider alternative character to # for versions

[sashakames]

# means comment in several widely-used languages. Thus it seems like a poor choice for a "meta-character" in mapfile syntax. Some considerations:

(1) redoing mapfiles in Json is a better long-term solution though...
(2) esgmapfile will also need to be updated @glevava

[alaniwi]

Let's try to avoid too many iterations. If redoing in JSON is envisaged, then I would be in favour of keeping the existing format until then. Once it is in JSON, there would be something to be said for having the unversioned ID and the version number in separate fields, which avoids the need to define a separator character (or string) altogether.