[GRASS-dev] GRASS 6 REALLY IS broken on Mac - bug identified

[Michael Barton]

I figured out how to fix this problem, but it is a bug in the program somewhere that it happens. 

The line

LANG: en_US.UTF-8

(or another LANG code) must be added manually to the .grassrc6 file.

Selecting this in preferences has no effect of saving it anywhere, but GRASS 6 looks for this in the .grassrc6 file -- where it is not, unless you manually put it there. I've seen some discussion about new language settings go across the list but have not paid much attention. Perhaps something has changed making this setting necessary. However, it will break everyone's GRASS 6 installation (at least on the Mac) unless GRASS puts some kind of default into the .grassrc6 file--where it is looking for it--and allows users to update their language setting in this file.

Note that I deleted the .grassrc6 file and let GRASS recreate it several times. It never added this now required language encoding line. In GRASS 7, this is put into the rc file inside the .grass7 directory. While GRASS 6 has a .grass6 directory, it is only for the wx configuration file. The language setting from preferences goes into this wx file, but apparently needs to be a GRASS variable set in the .grassrc6 file (and GRASS 7 rc file) too.

This also explains a weird error I was getting yesterday installing GRASS onto a Spanish colleague's machine--which is set to Spanish language encoding. 

If this is a quick fix, it is needed ASAP. Otherwise, I can file an urgent bug report. Perhaps this is only a bug on the Mac, but it is rather serious.

Michael
_____________________
C. Michael Barton
Visiting Scientist, Integrated Science Program
National Center for Atmospheric Research &
University Corporation for Atmospheric Research
303-497-2889 (voice)

Director, Center for Social Dynamics & Complexity 
Professor of Anthropology, School of Human Evolution & Social Change
Arizona State University
www: http://www.public.asu.edu/~cmbarton, http://csdc.asu.edu

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