[GRASS-dev] [GRASS GIS] #1672: gcpmanager fails to list source mapsets if non-ascii characters in grass data dir path

[GRASS GIS]

#1672: gcpmanager fails to list source mapsets if non-ascii characters in grass
data dir path
----------------------------------------------+-----------------------------
 Reporter:  hamish                            |       Owner:  grass-dev@…              
     Type:  defect                            |      Status:  new                      
 Priority:  normal                            |   Milestone:  6.4.3                    
Component:  wxGUI                             |     Version:  svn-trunk                
 Keywords:  georectifier, UnicodeDecodeError  |    Platform:  Linux                    
      Cpu:  x86-64                            |  
----------------------------------------------+-----------------------------
Changes (by torsti):

  * version:  6.4.2 => svn-trunk


Comment:

 This one is still around (r55643). It can be traced back to
 'self.grassdatabase' in '!OnLocation' (gui/wxpython/gcp/manager.py, line
 376), which gets its value at line 94:

 {{{
 self.grassdatabase = grass.gisenv()['GISDBASE']
 }}}

 'gisenv' is defined at line 720 in lib/python/script/core.py:
 {{{
 s = read_command("g.gisenv", flags='n')
 return parse_key_val(s)
 }}}

 Neither the string 's' read from g.gisenv nor the dictionary returned by
 'parse_key_val' is explicitly decoded to Unicode, so when it is finally
 implicitly cast to Unicode somewhere in Python's bowels, the default ascii
 codec is used, which leads to errors if $GISDBASE contains non ascii
 characters.

 This a wider python (at least for < 3.x) problem, and fixing it for this
 specific issue won't probably solve all existing !UnicodeDecodeErrors nor
 prevent new ones from surfacing, but at least any GUI component calling
 gisenv can probably be fixed at one location.

 Any filenames/paths read into wxpython/pygrass should probably be
 explicitly decoded to Unicode, e.g. with the 'decode()' function defined
 at line 79 in script/core.py. Enforcing only ascii chars works for mapset
 and location names, but can't/shouldn't be the solution for path
 components not under GRASS's direct control.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/1672#comment:2>
GRASS GIS <http://grass.osgeo.org>