[GRASS5] Re: Named attribute support in GRASS

[Radim Blazek]

On Friday 08 February 2002 17:07, 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.
>
> Helena

My wish is do not support sites format in grass51.
I propose for grass51 to save sites as vector points and save values for site 
either as
- z coordinate (only one)
or
- attributes in table (more values) 

I want to add for v.in.ascii optional input file format similar to sites 
(float values separated by optional field separator).

Problem could be with database speed. Postgres is slow for
inserting and dbf for selecting. We have to add indexes to dbf
driver, that should solve the problem.

Radim