[GRASS-dev] terminology issues in grass7

[Michael Barton]

On Aug 9, 2008, at 2:54 PM, <grass-dev-request at lists.osgeo.org> wrote:

> Date: Sat, 09 Aug 2008 23:45:27 +0200
> From: Maciej Sieczka <tutey at o2.pl>
> Subject: Re: [GRASS-dev] terminology issues in grass7
> To: grass-dev at lists.osgeo.org
> Cc: Martin Landa <landa.martin at gmail.com>,	Michael Barton
> 	<michael.barton at asu.edu>
> Message-ID: <489E0FF7.7010002 at o2.pl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
>
> Michael Barton pisze:
>
>> I agree with changing map to layers and using map to refer to the
>> composited group of layers.
>
> Sounds alright to me as well.
>
>> However, I disagree with using "field number" for the features that  
>> are
>> now called "layers" in vectors. These are "key fields" or "keys" in
>> standard DBMS terminology for linking the vector table with the
>> attribute table. I propose using "key" or "keyfield".
>
> In GRASS there is already a term "key column" (the column that links  
> the
> category number with the table row). Since terms "field" and "column"
> are sometimes used interchangeably, and term "key column" is already a
> part of GRASS terminology, using "keyfield" for something different  
> will
> lead to confussion.

"I don't think this is official", but the cat field certainly IS a key  
field to link vectors and attribute tables--more so than layers. So I  
agree that this would be confusing.

>
>
> May I suggest "table link" in place of the current "layer" then? So  
> each
> vector map can have multilpe "table links", and each "table" can have
> it's own "key column".

This sounds reasonable to me too. It clearly describes what the  
feature does.

Michael