[GRASS-dev] LOCATION/MAPSET, LOCATION_NAME

Hi

grass61 --help says:

<snip>

Parameters:
  GISDBASE initial database
  LOCATION_NAME initial location
  MAPSET initial mapset

  GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET fully qualified initial LOCATION directory

</snip>

I'm wondering whether the last sentence is correct. Shouldn't it be
"fully qualified initial MAPSET directory"?

To add to confussion,
http://grass.itc.it/grass61/manuals/html61_user/grass6.html under
"Location Environment Variables" describes a LOCATION variable as "A
fully qualified path to a mapset". I think this variable name doesn't
reflect it's function and confuses the user. I know it cannot be changed
in Grass 6.x, but maybe for Grass 7 it should replaced with, eg.,
MAPSET_DIRECT or so? And LOCATION_NAME should be then replaced with
plane LOCATION, to make things more obvious.

Then, "Example 1" would look like this, which seems clear to me:

<quote>

Example 1
    The environment variables are defined as follows:

    MAPSET_DIRECT = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
    GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
    LOCATION = spearfish60
    MAPSET = PERMANENT

</quote>

Maciek

On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 09:18:56AM +0200, Maciej Sieczka wrote:

Hi

grass61 --help says:

<snip>

Parameters:
  GISDBASE initial database
  LOCATION_NAME initial location
  MAPSET initial mapset

  GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET fully qualified initial LOCATION directory

</snip>

I'm wondering whether the last sentence is correct. Shouldn't it be
"fully qualified initial MAPSET directory"?

To add to confussion,
http://grass.itc.it/grass61/manuals/html61_user/grass6.html under
"Location Environment Variables" describes a LOCATION variable as "A
fully qualified path to a mapset". I think this variable name doesn't
reflect it's function and confuses the user. I know it cannot be changed
in Grass 6.x, but maybe for Grass 7 it should replaced with, eg.,
MAPSET_DIRECT or so? And LOCATION_NAME should be then replaced with
plane LOCATION, to make things more obvious.

Then, "Example 1" would look like this, which seems clear to me:

<quote>

Example 1
    The environment variables are defined as follows:

    MAPSET_DIRECT = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
    GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
    LOCATION = spearfish60
    MAPSET = PERMANENT

</quote>

Maciek

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Hi,

I agree with you that it's confusing, but MAPSET_DIRECT looks odd to me.
What about MAPSET_PATH? I don't want to be very picky about naming
conventions for environment variables. However, when it comes to
consistency, it looks like there is no standard.

<quote>
* Environment variables
GRASS_ADDON_PATH
GRASS_BACKGROUNDCOLOR why isn't it GRASS_BACKGROUND_COLOR?
GRASS_ERROR_MAIL
GRASS_GNUPLOT
GRASS_HEIGHT
GRASS_HTML_BROWSER
GRASS_INT_ZLIB
GRASS_MESSAGE_FORMAT
GRASS_MOUSE_BUTTON
GRASS_PAGER
GRASS_PERL
GRASS_PNGFILE GRASS_PNG_FILE?
GRASS_STDERR
GRASS_TCLSH
GRASS_TRANSPARENT
GRASS_TRUECOLOR GRASS_TRUE_COLOR?
GRASS_UI_TERM
GRASS_VERSION
GRASS_WIDTH
GRASS_WISH

* Environment variables automatically set by the startup script:
GISBASE GRASSBASE, GRASS_BASE?
GISRC GRASSRC, GRASS_RC?

* Internal environment variables
GRASS_OVERWRITE
GRASS_REGION
WIND_OVERRIDE GRASS_WIND_OVERRIDE? there is a possibility that
      other softwares use the same name.

* gisenv variables
DEBUG
DM_FORM_MODE
GISDBASE do we really need GIS prefix when we're already
      in grass GIS?
GIS_LOCK LOCK?
GRASS_DB_ENCODING DB_ENCODING? why do we need GRASS_ prefix for
      gisenv variables?
GRASS_GUI UI since its value is not boolean but "text" or
      "tcltk". GRASS_GUI="text" is somewhat strange.
LOCATION MAPSET_PATH?
LOCATION_NAME LOCATION?
MAPSET
OVERWRITE
</quote>

Just my 2 cents.

Huidae Cho

Maciej Sieczka wrote:

grass61 --help says:

<snip>

Parameters:
  GISDBASE initial database
  LOCATION_NAME initial location
  MAPSET initial mapset

  GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET fully qualified initial LOCATION directory

</snip>

I'm wondering whether the last sentence is correct. Shouldn't it be
"fully qualified initial MAPSET directory"?

No, it should be "fully qualified initial mapset directory", without
capitalisation.

Historically, the environment variable LOCATION contained the full
path to the mapset directory (which is why the GRASS variable for the
location is called LOCATION_NAME rather than just LOCATION).

We stopped storing those parameters in environment variables because
environment variables cannot easily be changed within a GRASS session
(e.g. the g.mapset command cannot change them). Instead, each script
which needs to use those parameters has to obtain them itself using
g.gisenv.

To add to confussion,
http://grass.itc.it/grass61/manuals/html61_user/grass6.html under
"Location Environment Variables" describes a LOCATION variable as "A
fully qualified path to a mapset". I think this variable name doesn't
reflect it's function and confuses the user. I know it cannot be changed
in Grass 6.x, but maybe for Grass 7 it should replaced with, eg.,
MAPSET_DIRECT or so? And LOCATION_NAME should be then replaced with
plane LOCATION, to make things more obvious.

The LOCATION environment variable is no longer used, although it is
still common for scripts to use a shell variable with that name and
semantics.

--
Glynn Clements <glynn@gclements.plus.com>