[GRASS5] v.in.ascii problems

[Hamish]

> >>> This was the problem. I never imagined that vector points and
> >>> vector lines/areas had their coordinate order reversed.
> >>
> >> annoying I know; it's that way for unknown historical reasons.
> > 
> > Maybe we should fix that for 6.0?
> 
> I think yes - especially if v.in.ascii is going to be used BOTH for
> points(where we have x,y) and vector data (that has y,x, but this
> module was rarely used, 

Many scripts use it (official and personal); 
"-o" version is how we move 5.7 vector maps back to 5.0/5.3; (no change)
v.in.ascii's xcol= and ycol= get more use than the defaults here..


> the reasons for coordinate reversal are indeed purely historical and
> it has been always confusing for users). 

There will be even worse confusion if we just switch it without adding
some sort of obvious header line and generously pepper the code with
G_warning()s.

see discussion of this a while ago:
 http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/2004-March/013735.html


> I think that the fact that 5.7 has a new vector support is a good
> opportunity to change it so that it is consistent with how the
> coordinates are handled in GRASS.

I agree that this is the time to deal with this if we are going to.



Hamish