[GRASS-dev] Re: updates to grass startup

[Paul Kelly]

On Wed, 13 Dec 2006, Maris Nartiss wrote:

> Hi,
>
> my cleanup just fixed bugs 5328 and 5373. It also pariatly fixed 5372
> and 5371 (My fault - too much bugs in one report).
>
> Summarising up:
>
> Currently there is no mechanism to catch error if creating of new
> location has failed. Current code always will look like it has suceed
> and will restart GRASS to strat use newly created location. Hamish
> code will only make error message visible to user (good thing), but
> GRASS should not continue as if everything was OK.
>
> When creating new location from EPSG code, there is some error in
> cleaning up temporary location in case of error. (See below)
>
> Creating new location from georeferenced file still will not work, as
> it needs some (temporary) location to run g.proj. Probably
> make_location_epsg.sh.in could be used to create new, similar script
> for georeferenced file too. Or probaby some new script, that creates
> valid temporary location and then cleans up for any module, that may
> need temporary location for running (do we need such script?).

I think we could maybe include the "demolocation" in the released 
distribution? It is small so not much overhead and contains a valid GISRC 
file that can be used in the initial stages.

>
> To reproduce problems - 1) rm .grassrc6 (This why n00bs report
> unreporoducable errors - daily grass users always have .grassrc6 with
> valid locations/mapsets);
> 2) create new location with EPSG code 1234 - tmp location is left over;
> 3) repeat 1st step and now create new location from valid
> georeferenced file - error.
>
> Currently I'm not as good in coding to fix those problems :(
>
> Just trying to make GRASS fool proof,

Really important. The startup is IMHO one of the most awkward, antiquated 
and bugprone parts of GRASS which I'm sure really puts people off!

Paul