[GRASS5] Re: Named attribute support in GRASS

[Markus Neteler]

On Fri, Feb 08, 2002 at 11:07:15AM -0500, Helena Mitasova wrote:
> > Radim and me recently discussed this option as well. The sites
> > format should be eliminated and functionality moved to vector
> > points mostly stored in a DBMS table or simple DBF (which is already
> > supported).
> 
> there is one more thing that needs to be taken care of before the old sites
> are eliminated and that is import of data - importing vector data is often a pain
> (although it should not be with vector points)
> while import of sites data is fairly easy even if they come in a variety of formats
> 
> from GPS, LIDAR or various monitoring devices.
> 
> Most programs that support
> sites should be easily modified or replaced by vector data support, there aren't
> really too many site specific modules that would not have a vector equivalent.

Radim proposed to me to also allow for simple ASCII tables which
only include INT and FP but no strings. All other stuff should become
vector-only. In general it won't be a big task to change s.in.dbf to
v.in.dbf. Also CSV files will be possible.

Markus