[GRASS5] Re: Named attribute support in GRASS

[Helena]

"Eric G. Miller" wrote:

> On Thu, 7 Feb 2002 14:43:08 -0500, Carl Worth <cworth at east.isi.edu> wrote:
>
> >  > I'm considering writing a vector line module similar to d.vect.area, only
> >  > it'd be for drawing labelled lines in different colors via a similar
> >  > legend file (yea? nay? don't care?).
> >
> > Eric,
> >
> > Thanks for this excellent work.
> >
> > I've been thinking, and it seems like a better long-term solution is
> > to move away from a new "legend file" and make better use of
> > attributes in GRASS.
> >
> > I've been looking at the sites format, (I don't know how other formats
> > compare), and it does allow for named attribute columns, but the names
> > are rarely used in GRASS. Instead, the attributes are referenced by
> > index, (oddly, by an index specific to each attribute type).
>
> I don't disagree with you about using attributes, but that functionality
> isn't available in GRASS 5.0 (only cat numbers and labels).  I wouldn't
> want to extend the sites format. IMHO, it should be thrown away as soon
> as possible and replaced with database tables.  Better point data
> support in 5.1 vectors will probably makes "sites" a thing of the
> past (I can hope can't I?).

the current sites format was a temporary solution until an adequate capability
would be available in vector format - we had 3D soils data with many attributes,
as well as some 3D pollution data and sites combined with awk provided
lots of functionality that we needed. I don't think that the current sites format
should be
further developed, however we cannot throw it away until its
functionality is fully replaced (my entire work now depends on it as all the
measured
data that I get are ascii point data and it has been very easy to handle them in
GRASS).
But it was really a temporary solution (which has been in place for over six
years),

Helena



>
>
> --
> Eric G. Miller <egm2 at jps.net>
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