[GRASS5] Grass 5.3 on Mac OSX

[Paul Kelly]

Hello
Just catching up on some old e-mails from when I was away for a while:

Michael Barton wrote:
[...]
> Suggestion: Right now, 5.0.x and 5.3 both create grass5 directories and
> install themselves into /usr/local/bin as grass5. 

I think that counts as a bug but 5.3 is only experimental and has only
been in existence as a separate version number for a few months so there
is plenty of time to fix it.

> I much prefer the way
> Markus has set up 5.7. It installs in /usr/local/grass57 AND in
> /usr/local/bin as grass57. 

Yes, although it is not historically consistent (GRASS 4.3 is started by
typing grass4.3 i.e. with a decimal point in the name). However most of
Europe uses a comma (,) rather than a full stop (.) for a decimal
point---perhaps that was the reason it was dropped, to avoid any
potential confusion? Markus?

> This way, someone can install a new version
> without overwriting an older one. Currently, can only avoid this by
> changing both the /bin/ and /prefix/ directories in ./config. You can
> also easily choose which version you want to run at a particular time
> without trying to remember a special path.
> 
> Question: After the fact can I change the name of /usr/local/bin/grass5
> to /usr/local/bin/grass53? Same for gmake5 and gmakelink5 files, and
> /usr/local/grass5 directory? Or will this completely confuse GRASS?

Yes they should probably be changed although it is arguable if gmake5
and gmakelinks5 should/need to be changed as they are only used for
re-compling modules. I feel it should probably be grass54 or grass5.4
rather than grass53, as 5.3 and 5.4 are the experimental and stable
lines of essentially the same version and there may be no point in
changing the name of the startup script suddenly when we release the
stable version.

By the same logic the startup script for 5.7 should actually be called
grass58? I may well have missed something in the logic of my thinking
here; what do other people think?

> This way, a tarball I create wouldn't overwrite someone's existing
> grass 5.0.x files when untarred.

I definitely think the 5.3 startup script should have a different name
from the 5.0 one and unless there are objections I will see that it is
changed before the 5.3.0 release is made.

Paul