[GRASSLIST:8697] Re: Import geodetic points

[Hamish]

> what is the correct geodetic format GRASS can import. I am trying to
> import the following text file:
> 
> cat     long            lat             loc
> 1       5:46:01E        49:48:33N       PERLE
..
> ------------snip-------------------------------
> 
> with the following COMMAND:
> 
> > tail +2 georef_man.txt | v.in.ascii fs='\t' out=precip x=2 y=3 cat=1 \
> columns='cat int, x double, y double, label varchar(20)'
> 
> I get the following ERROR message:
> 
> Maximum input row length: 40
> Maximum number of columns: 4
> Minimum number of columns: 4
> ERROR: x column is not of number type
> 
> Apparently, the geographical coordinates are in the wrong format and
> the column specification is probably also wrong (columns= x double,
> ...).
> 
> Which format do I have to use for degrees, minutes and seconds? And
> how can I specify that in the columns option? (x long, y lat ??)


v.in.ascii will not (currently) read ddd:mm:ss format coordinates. It
should be using the G_scan_easting() and G_scan_northing() library
functions to convert these into floating point numbers but this hasn't 
been done yet. So you need to convert 5:46:01E into +5.000212963 and 
import that way. It is seeing the d:m:s input as a text string when it 
wants a number.

ps: "fs=tab" works and you might want to use "skip=1" to avoid having to
use `tail +2` and save the header line to the map's history file. 
Alternatively you can #comment out the header line to skip it.



Hamish