[GRASS-dev] NULL file compression by default

Hi,

according to the current documentation, the NULL files are still
uncompressed [1].
Is there an important reason to not switch it on by default? The code is here:

https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/trunk/lib/raster/init.c#L124

I just don't want to waste terabytes because the GRASS_COMPRESS_NULLS
env var isn't set...

thanks
Markus

[1] (yet unreleased):
     https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/wiki/Release/7.2.0-News#Librarychanges

Markus Neteler wrote:

according to the current documentation, the NULL files are still
uncompressed [1].
Is there an important reason to not switch it on by default?

The fact that no "release" version supports reading compressed null
files. So anyone not explicitly disabling compression will be creating
maps which cannot be read by anyone using e.g. 7.0.4.

First, put out a release version which supports reading compressed
null files. Once it's been out long enough for adoption to be
widespread, you can consider compressing null files by default. Until
then, compression needs to be a conscious decision.

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