[GRASS-dev] Refactoring of grass.py and request for help

[Vaclav Petras]

Hi all,

I did a major refactoring of lib/init/grass.py file [1]. I believe that the
file is now much easier to understand and maintain. The changes were
necessary to implement #2579 without hacks and workarounds but it goes
beyond that. Now we can actually review the code, fix some bugs and remove
some dead code.

I actually removed a lot of dead code already such as repetitive cleanups.
Function calls are now clearer (better names + parameters + return values)
and it seems that some of the calls are not in the right order. And this is
where I want you to ask for help, there is several places I don't
completely understand or I'm unsure what it the desired behavior.

There is still few issues which prevents an implementation of things such
as alternative command line interfaces and reuse of the code in general.
However, in general it is much easier to introduce new features or change
existing ones (I just don't have a time to continue in it).

I put TODO comments in the source code, so this places can be found. If you
contributed to this file or you understand what is there, it would be great
if you can go through the TODO comments and see which you can resolve or
comment on. There is also some low hanging fruit for people who would like
to get familiar with the code.

I have also discovered some bugs when looking at the code or testing. I
will send separate emails about those.

Thanks Martin for the improvements already contributed and for catching the
bug with tmp dir I made.

Best,
Vaclav

[1] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/browser/grass/trunk/lib/init/grass.py
[2] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/2579
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