[GRASS-dev] clean_temp.c versus deleting mapset's .tmp

[William Hargrove]

This is for old GRASS codgers like me who run GRASS commands *outside* 
the GRASS shell, by setting all of the environment variables.

This is the way that we change active mapsets as well.

I do this to have all of the *nix commands integrated seamlessly with 
GRASS commands.

If a particular GRASS command aborts or dies, the temp files in the .tmp 
directory are left behind.

Since we never run the shell, .tmp is never deleted, and they build up, 
eating disk space.


This thread is also germane with respect to the current discussion of 
GRASS environment variables.

Currently I shift between GRASS 6 and 7 by sourcing an alternative 
.bashrc file that makes use of the strippath function to clean GRASS 6 
stuff from the existing paths ...

Please don't eliminate env variables or alter them too significantly ...


Thanks,

Bill H.


On 05/21/2015 04:45 AM, Glynn Clements wrote:
>
> Vaclav Petras wrote:
>
>> when I was working on grass.py I saw there usage of clean_temp function
>> which calls clean_temp program and deletion of the whole .tmp directory and
>> I can't make sense out of it.
>>
>> It seems to me that clean_temp (lib/init/clean_temp.c) executable called in
>> grass.py is not necessary because the whole .tmp directory is anyway
>> deleted at the beginning and at the end of the session. clean_temp is doing
>> some special cleaning according to pids but whole directory is deleted
>> anyway at the end. Can the whole lib/init/clean_temp.c can be safely
>> removed? Or maybe it has some meaning when executed before the session
>> starts because at that point .tmp is not deleted. Can someone please
>> clarify this for me here or in the source code?
>>
>> Also, the clean_temp function is called manually while other cleanups are
>> called using at exit mechanism. Supposing we need the clean up at all, I'm
>> not sure if there is any reason to keep it explicit. Perhaps this was just
>> inconsistency, not an intention.
>
> clean_temp is more restrictive in what it will remove (only files
> owned by the current user, only files older than 4 days).
>
> The original rationale for this behaviour is probably forgotten, and
> it's unclear if it's still valid (probably not, if the startup script
> is removing the entire directory at the end of the session and no-one
> has complained).
>

-- 
William W. Hargrove
Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center
USDA Forest Service
Southern Research Station
200 WT Weaver Boulevard
Asheville, NC  28804-3454

(828) 257-4846
(865) 235-4753 (cell)
(828) 257-4313 (fax)
hnw at geobabble.org
http://www.geobabble.org/~hnw