[GRASS-dev] Re: mapsets and locations with spaces on wingrass?

[Glynn Clements]

andrea antonello wrote:

> >>> So, in the path to the GRASS database including that is might be ok,
> >>> but apparently not yet in a location name.
> >>
> >> Pretty sure that is the point. Having a space both in the mapset and
> >> in the location leads to failure for me.
> >> GRASS doesn't even open (both console and gui mode) in that case.
> >>
> >
> > The main problems rely on spaces in the GRASS path; I still did not detected
> > problems related to spaces in the GIS Data Base path when launching
> > executable modules; I suppose there may be some problems only when launching
> > scripts.
> 
> Sorry, I'm not sure I get you.
> I am sure that there are problems if the location name has spaces or
> the mapset name has spaces.
> You agree with that?

Aha. I had assumed that you were talking about spaces in the database
path (GISDBASE), which should work but occasionally doesn't.

While the database path can (in theory) be any legal pathname, spaces
(and various other characters) are not permitted "beyond that point":
not in the names of locations, mapsets, or maps (or similar entities,
e.g. imagery groups, named regions, etc).

That isn't specific to Windows.

For most of GRASS, names cannot contain any of the following
characters:

	/ " ' @ , = *

(slash, double quote, single quote, at, comma, equals, asterisk), nor
can they contain spaces, control characters (codes below 32), the
delete character (code 127) or 8-bit characters (codes 128 and above).

The following:

	\ : ? < > |

(backslash, colon, question mark, less-than, greater-than, vertical
bar) aren't specifically prohibited by GRASS, but won't work on
Windows as they aren't allowed in filenames.

For vector maps, the rules are even more restrictive: a vector map
name must be a valid SQL identifier, which means that it must begin
with a letter, can only contain letters, digits and underscores,
cannot be an SQL keyword, and cannot exceed any maximum length imposed
by the database backend which is used.

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