Rim dbms

[mary l. daum]

Here's a question for any of you who are familiar with the
Rim database interface:

I currently have a site list with various sorts of meteorological
stations (wind profilers, radiosonde launch sites, &c).  I'd like
to put them into a Rim db along with assorted attribute info about
each site (elevation, antenna height and direction, &c).  I also
need to include information about the kinds of observations taken
at each site, such as temperature, wind direction and speed, precip
(not the actual data themselves, however).  Also available is info
about the observations (instrument type, manufacturer, QC data...).

Here's my question (at last):
The GRASS man pages on s.db.rim indicate a particular sort of db
structure, apparently more limited that what is available in Rim
itself, according to its manual.  There is no real indication in
the GRASS manual of the relational nature of Rim dbs, which I 
gather is some sort of rBase prototype.  Can I create a fully
relational database (site table, observation table, instrument
table) and then access it through GRASS?  Must the db be created
from within GRASS for GRASS to use it?  Assuming that the data
types are GRASS-legal (no vector or matrix fields), would it
be possible to create a view or other such temporary table that
intersects tables and access that view/temp.table through GRASS?

I am _not_ a C programmer, and am a novice GRASS user, so I'm
in no position to muck around in the code to spice things up.
I just need to know what the limits are within which I must
work.

Thanks for any help you can lend.

		Mary 



*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*
* Dr. Mary L. Daum						      *
* Biomedical and Environmental					      *
*    Assessment Group						      *
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