[GRASS-dev] No longer able to open a mapset by symbolic link

[Glynn Clements]

Joel Pitt wrote:

> I just retrieved the latest weekly CVS snapshot for GRASS and found
> I'm no longer able to access mapsets that are referred to by symbolic
> links in linux.
> 
> Is this intended behaviour (possibly related to the windows port)? Or a bug?
> 
> Strangely the symbolic link is displayed as being an available mapset,
> but when trying to change to that mapset the mapset is said to not
> exist:
> 
> ----
> GRASS 6.3.cvs (nzmg):~/gis_databases/nzmg > g.mapsets mapset=test2
> ERROR: [test2] - no such mapset
> 
> Available mapsets:
> 
> PERMANENT    gypsy_moth   lhumile      lhumile.old  test         test2
> ----
> test2 is a copy of test, but in ~/:
> ----
> GRASS 6.3.cvs (nzmg):~/gis_databases/nzmg > ls
> gypsy_moth
> lhumile -> /media/simulations/gis_databases/nzmg/lhumile
> lhumile.old
> PERMANENT
> test
> test2 -> /home/joel/test2/
> ----
> Permission of all the files/directories look fine.
> 
> I'll submit a bug request, but wasn't sure whether this behaviour has
> been discussed and decided as intended. I hope not, because I use it
> to separate out simulation results (huge and stored on an external
> server/HDD) and input data for the simulations (stored locally).

AFAIK, having symlinks to mapset directories has never been
intentionally supported; it just happened to work.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>