[GRASS-dev] any special reason why choice of raster compression method is done via environmental variable ?

[Moritz Lennert]

Hi Markus,

In recent days, I've been confronted several times with the issue of 
people trying to share data among themselves, but using different 
versions of GRASS, and so raster data compressed in a more recent 
version of GRASS was not usable in an older version of GRASS.

Now, I agree that generally the solution is to tell people to use the 
latest and greatest, but this is not always possible / it is not 
necessarily highest on the list of priorities of people to see how they 
can install the latest version of GRASS within their particular environment.

Obviously, those with the latest version of GRASS can simple recompress 
using ZLIB. However, compression method is defined as an environment 
variable. This is somewhat daunting to many MS Windows users out there. 
Is there any specific reason that lead to the choice of not using a 
parameter to allow the choice of compression method (possibly to 
override a default that is still defined by an environment variable) ?

Moritz