[GRASS-dev] Vector file naming

[Paul Kelly]

On Thu, 7 Sep 2006, Markus Neteler wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 07, 2006 at 11:12:18AM +0000, Brad Douglas wrote:
>> GRASS 6.3.cvs (hamilton2):/usr/src/grass6 > r.to.vect in=elizabeth.los
>> out=elizabeth.los feature=area
>> Illegal vector map name <elizabeth.los>. Character <.> not allowed.
>> ERROR: Map name is not SQL compliant.
>>
>> How do file names conflict with SQL92?  I thought SQL92 only applied to
>> file contents.  Is this also being used as a workaround for DBF
>> limitations?  What I'm getting at is: Why is '.' not allowed?  Doing a
>> quick archive search failed to illuminate any light bulbs in the
>> immediate vicinity.
>
> Hi Brad,
>
> AFAIK '.' is reserved for joins. '_' will work.
>
> See
> http://grass.itc.it/grass63/manuals/html63_user/sql.html
> -> NOTES
>
> It would be nice to have the naiming constraints relaxed but
> I am not sure if that's really possible.

IIUC this is related to the earlier discussion about database files? With
the current situation of having one database per mapset, each 
vector map has its own table in the database which matches the name of the 
map. And so the name of the map must conform to SQL table naming rules. If 
it was changed to have one database file per map then the SQL naming rules 
wouldn't be a problem. But TBH it does seem logical to have one database 
per mapset, as Radim said for queries over multiple maps etc. In fact 
really, one database for the whole location seems most logical. And some 
kind of relation to relate the table names in the database to the mapset 
and map they corresponded with. That would require a terrible lot of 
programming though I'm sure. Just thinking out loud.

Paul