[GRASS5] new vector2

[Justin Hickey]

Hi Radim

Radim Blazek wrote:
> My conclusion is:
> - vector file may ben written in big or little endian (no pdp or 
>   other) and byte order is specified in header
> - by default new file will be written in machine native byte order
>   (later add optional byte order for new files by enviroment
>    variable GRASS_VECTOR_ENDIAN)
> - vector modules (library) will work with both little and big endian 
>   vector files
> - write new module for conversion little <=> big
> - no auto conversion into native format (read only files, files shared
>   by more platforms)
> - vector written in one byte order (big for example) will be updated
>   in that byte order (big) even on machine with some other byte order
>   (little)

Hmmm. I don't understand why you need to maintain the byte-order of a
file, or provide the users with a new module. It seems to me that it
would be easier (less work) to write a conversion function in the vector
library that checks the byte-order and converts it to the machine
byte-order if necessary. Write will always write in native format. Then
the conversion is only performed when necessary, the user never knows
the difference, and grass will always be able to read either format
making the files platform independent. It seems to me that in this case
the only task here is to write a single "check and convert" function for
reading vector files. Am I missing something?

-- 
Sincerely,

Jazzman (a.k.a. Justin Hickey)  e-mail: jhickey at hpcc.nectec.or.th
High Performance Computing Center
National Electronics and Computer Technology Center (NECTEC)
Bangkok, Thailand
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