[GRASS5] Re: 5.1: --html-description to parser added

[Markus Neteler]

On Tue, Feb 04, 2003 at 10:36:53PM +0000, Glynn Clements wrote:
> Markus Neteler wrote:
> 
> > > Derived from the --interface-description there is now
> > > --html-description
> > > available in the 5.1 parser (CVS).
> > 
> > A related question to this:
> > 
> > I would like to add a 'html' target to the 5.1 Makefiles.
[...]
> > unless there is a fake GRASS session.
> ... and you *aren't* cross-compiling.

right - a fake GRASS session I don't like.
 
> > Is there a better way than faking a GRASS session (hope so!)?
> 
> Ultimately most of G_gisinit() ought to be moved to G_parser(); but
> that would require that everything actually used G_parser(), which
> isn't the case at present.

Correct. In general it may be interesting to have 'parser'
as program for script usage (so that we don't have to build a
parser any more with shell commands) which provides parameters
and flags as
PARAM1
PARAM2 ..
FLAG1 ...

for further usage in a script.

Given that 99% (?) of the GRASS 5.1 commands could be using the parser.

> There are some other problems. E.g. some modules call G_get_window(),
> R_open_driver() etc and initialise the defaults based upon data from
> the current region or the monitor. This is (arguably) OK if the user
> is running "g.foo help" interactively, but it means that the defaults
> in the HTML file will reflect the session which was used to generate
> it.

That's another point against a fake session. If the (updated) parser 
got a flag to run without a GRASS session, it could be used in
Makefile and above problem should be minimized.

Markus