[GRASSLIST:7097] Re: databases

[Markus Neteler]

On Wed, Jun 08, 2005 at 12:27:10PM -0400, Jason Horn wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I've just stumbled into the topic of using databases linked with  
> GRASS.  I'd like to start using mySQL to store and manage spatial  
> data, but in spite of all the reading I've done (Tutorials, GRASS  
> Wiki, etc), it is still unclear to me what exactly can and can not be  
> stored in databases, and how.  For those of you with experience, can  
> you point me in the right direction?  I have lots of experience with  
> mySQL, so I'm comfortable with that topic. Here are my basic questions:
> 
> 1) Does having data in a database mean that it does not need to also  
> be stored in GRASS files?
> 
> 2) Can any GRASS vector data be stored in a database, or is it just  
> points?
> 
> 3) How is GRASS vector data put into a database? For example, I  
> download a vector file for county boundaries from a state agency  
> (polygons).  I can easily import this into GRASS.  Now what?  Many of  
> the tutorials focus on querying the database, but how to I load the  
> data into the db table in the first place?

This is done automagically by v.in.ogr (if the import format is supported
by OGR). 
If you want to throw the attributes into a DB different from DBF file (default),
then use db.connect first:

 http://grass.gdf-hannover.de/twiki/bin/view/GRASS/GrassSixTutorialAttributeManagement
 ->  Managing the default settings
 
Hope this helps

 Markus

> Thanks in advance for any assistance.
> 
> - Jason
> 
> 
> Jason Horn
> Boston University Department of Biology
> 5 Cumington Street  Boston, MA 02215
> 
> jhorn at bu.edu
> office: 617 353 6987
> cell: 401 588 2766
> 
> 

-- 
Markus Neteler     <neteler itc it>       http://mpa.itc.it
ITC-irst -  Centro per la Ricerca Scientifica e Tecnologica
MPBA - Predictive Models for Biol. & Environ. Data Analysis
Via Sommarive, 18        -       38050 Povo (Trento), Italy