[GRASS-dev] G_tempfile() proposed changes [relevant to creating a new location]

[Michael Barton]

At least as far as the GUI goes, it tries to do its own cleanup of the
tempfiles it creates. The development wxPython one does the same. AFAICT,
these were never cleaned up automatically anyway. I wish they were, but it
prompted me to include cleanup code that should be helpful in the current
circumstance.

Michael


On 1/6/07 7:57 AM, "Paul Kelly" <paul-grass at stjohnspoint.co.uk> wrote:

> I've had the attached changes (to G_tempfile(), g.tempfile and a couple of
> other places) sitting around for a while, but Michael's comment about
> changes to g.proj being forthcoming reminded me to hurry up and put them
> forward for discussion. The changes amount to:
>   * Re-naming the current G_tempfile() to G_tempfile_in_mapset().
>   * Change the calls to G_tempfile() in lib/gis/opencell.c to use the new
> function G_tempfile_in_mapset()
>   * Write a new G_tempfile() that puts a tempfile in the directory pointed
> to by the TEMP environment variable if it exists (this will be somewhere
> writeable by the user on Windows) or P_tmpdir otherwise (/tmp on Unix or
> root of current drive on Windows).
>   * Add a new command-line flag to g.tempfile to allow it to create a
> tempfile in the current mapset if necessary.
>   * Change r.in.aster (as an example) to use g.tempfile in this way. There
> would be more examples I'm sure we could find that want to create a large
> tempfile somewhere there's more than likely to be enough space - the
> original purpose of G_tempfile, according to comments in the source.
> Although perhaps that's not all that relevant. Perhaps in the past /tmp
> might have been likely to be very small?
> 
> The reason I haven't applied the changes yet is that I'm slightly worried
> about what the effect might be of the sudden change. In particular, that
> tempfiles created by the current G_tempfile (i.e. in the current mapset)
> get cleaned up at the end of the session and after the change they won't.
> Should we just change it and fix things on a case-by-case basis? (Either
> change them to create the tempfile in the mapset, or force them to delete
> it?) A bit of a dilemma.
> 
> Paul

__________________________________________
Michael Barton, Professor of Anthropology
School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity
Arizona State University

phone: 480-965-6213
fax: 480-965-7671
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton