[GRASSLIST:7204] Re: v.out.ascii format question

[Hamish]

> I'm trying to figure out exactly what the v.out.ascii 
> (format=standard) outputs. The v.out.ascii or 
> v.in.ascii help pages don't directly help - they
> don't handle the things that come after the 
> coordinates. 
> 
> I seem to have a few lines without coordinates in
> my data (spearfish60, actually), which I'll just assume
> is allowed, but more interestingly, I can't make full
> sense out of what seem to be category lines after
> the coordinates of each feature. What do the two
> numbers mean? Perhaps id (of what?) and category?
> What happens when there is more than one line of these?
> 
> Relatedly, if those are categories I don't know
> what to make of the "v.out.ascii does not copy
> the dig_cats [...]" comment in the v.out.ascii
> documentation. (I use grass 6.0.0, by the way)
> 
> Basically I'd like to know what the output format
> is, exactly. A little 'why' would be nice too:)


The vector ascii format is quickly described on the v.in.ascii help 
page and that links to the format specification:

http://grass.ibiblio.org/grass61/manuals/html61_user/v.in.ascii.html
http://freegis.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/~checkout~/grass6/doc/vector/vector.html#ascii

Read the specification. 
  (note there's an error there:  Y X was changed to X Y)



see the v.in.garmin script in GRASS 6 for a working example of using 
GRASS ASCII vector files with categories.


Hamish