[GRASSLIST:5991] Re: moving layers from one machine to another

[Roger Bivand]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Chris Fonnesbeck wrote:

> On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 19:47:17 +0100 (CET), Roger Bivand
> <Roger.Bivand at nhh.no> wrote:
> > On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Chris Fonnesbeck wrote:
> > 
> > > That makes sense. So, what is the recommended way, then, of moving
> > > GRASS layers among platforms?
> > 
> > I'm returning Chris' question to the list, so that the answer gets into
> > the archives. Chris, could you state which GRASS version you are using on
> > both platforms? I guess this is 5.7 or 6.0 - could somebody who knows the
> > vector storage formats comment please?
> > 
> 
> This is version 6, beta 2. I am using Lorenzo Moretti's OS X binary,
> to be specific. The imported file is a vector shapefile.
> 

PLEASE reply to the list too - it is polite to keep the list informed on a 
matter of some importance. You have not said what the GRASS version on 
which Linux was. 

The documentation is in the last resort in the 6.0.0 beta2 sources.
lib/gis/Makefile has EXTRA_LIBS = $(XDRLIB) ..., but lib/vector/*/Makefile
don't, as far as I can see. $(XDRLIB) is in: form/Makefile, gis/Makefile,
init/Makefile, vector/diglib/Makefile: this final directory includes
reference to a portable vector format. Neither "XDR" nor "portable" appear
in the grass60vlib reference manual, but the portable functions seem to be
called in Vector_read_nat() and elsewhere in Vlib.

The release notes for 6.0.0 beta2 say "The new internal vector data format 
is portable between 32bit and 64bit platforms", and googling the GRASS 
site for portable and vector gives lots of hits, but no specific 
declaration that you can validly do what you want to do, or that you 
can't. A good deal of work seems to have gone into trying to provide 
endian portability, so maybe there is something else involved.


-- 
Roger Bivand
Economic Geography Section, Department of Economics, Norwegian School of
Economics and Business Administration, Breiviksveien 40, N-5045 Bergen,
Norway. voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 93 93
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no