Forestry and Grass + scripts for models

[Roderick A. Anderson]

On Tue, 26 Oct 1999, Agustin Lobo wrote:

>
> Now there are other script languages than could be better, i.e.,
> like perl, does anybody have experience at integrating grass
> commands within a perl script?

Despite what others may think or say perl is an excellant language for
simple to very complex projects.  It is only as obscure as you want it to
be.  Since perl was developed because of a lack in shell and filter
programming I'd say it would work, generating and passing commands, to
GRASS.  There are statistical, and matrix modules already available for
perl (OpenSource of course) which would make custom applications very
easy.  There is already modules for PostgreSQL (which has come up in
another thread) plus most of the other RDBMS engines avaliable.
 
> 
> Finally, I explored the possibility of using Splus (R is now a 
> free alternative and mostly compatible) programs, as Splus (or R)
> can issue OS commands. Therefore, it is possible, from within an 
> Splus program, run i.e. r.stats and read in the result into 
> an S array and make computations. But the communication is
> through files.

With perl it can be pipes or files or even by using backticks.

I'm a perl fan and font junkie, with a proclivity for GIS, maps, and
databases.

Rod
--
Roderick A. Anderson
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