[GRASS-dev] LOCATION/MAPSET, LOCATION_NAME

[Huidae Cho]

On Fri, Jul 21, 2006 at 09:18:56AM +0200, Maciej Sieczka wrote:
> Hi
> 
> grass61 --help says:
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Parameters:
>   GISDBASE                       initial database
>   LOCATION_NAME                  initial location
>   MAPSET                         initial mapset
> 
>   GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET  fully qualified initial LOCATION directory
> 
> </snip>
> 
> I'm wondering whether the last sentence is correct. Shouldn't it be
> "fully qualified initial MAPSET directory"?
> 
> 
> 
> To add to confussion,
> http://grass.itc.it/grass61/manuals/html61_user/grass6.html under
> "Location Environment Variables" describes a LOCATION variable as "A
> fully qualified path to a mapset". I think this variable name doesn't
> reflect it's function and confuses the user. I know it cannot be changed
> in Grass 6.x, but maybe for Grass 7 it should replaced with, eg.,
> MAPSET_DIRECT or so? And LOCATION_NAME should be then replaced with
> plane LOCATION, to make things more obvious.
> 
> Then, "Example 1" would look like this, which seems clear to me:
> 
> <quote>
> 
> Example 1
>     The environment variables are defined as follows:
> 
>     MAPSET_DIRECT = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
>     GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
>     LOCATION = spearfish60
>     MAPSET = PERMANENT
> 
> </quote>
> 
> 
> Maciek
> 
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Hi,

I agree with you that it's confusing, but MAPSET_DIRECT looks odd to me.
What about MAPSET_PATH?  I don't want to be very picky about naming
conventions for environment variables.  However, when it comes to
consistency, it looks like there is no standard.

<quote>
* Environment variables
GRASS_ADDON_PATH
GRASS_BACKGROUNDCOLOR	why isn't it GRASS_BACKGROUND_COLOR?
GRASS_ERROR_MAIL
GRASS_GNUPLOT
GRASS_HEIGHT
GRASS_HTML_BROWSER
GRASS_INT_ZLIB
GRASS_MESSAGE_FORMAT
GRASS_MOUSE_BUTTON
GRASS_PAGER
GRASS_PERL
GRASS_PNGFILE		GRASS_PNG_FILE?
GRASS_STDERR
GRASS_TCLSH
GRASS_TRANSPARENT
GRASS_TRUECOLOR		GRASS_TRUE_COLOR?
GRASS_UI_TERM
GRASS_VERSION
GRASS_WIDTH
GRASS_WISH

* Environment variables automatically set by the startup script:
GISBASE			GRASSBASE, GRASS_BASE?
GISRC			GRASSRC, GRASS_RC?

* Internal environment variables
GRASS_OVERWRITE
GRASS_REGION
WIND_OVERRIDE		GRASS_WIND_OVERRIDE? there is a possibility that
			other softwares use the same name.

* gisenv variables
DEBUG
DM_FORM_MODE
GISDBASE		do we really need GIS prefix when we're already
			in grass GIS?
GIS_LOCK		LOCK?
GRASS_DB_ENCODING	DB_ENCODING? why do we need GRASS_ prefix for
			gisenv variables?
GRASS_GUI		UI since its value is not boolean but "text" or
			"tcltk". GRASS_GUI="text" is somewhat strange.
LOCATION		MAPSET_PATH?
LOCATION_NAME		LOCATION?
MAPSET
OVERWRITE
</quote>

Just my 2 cents.

Huidae Cho