[GRASS-user] dbf File not being Created with v.in.ascii

[Paul Kelly]

On Sun, 22 Jul 2007, Ryan Rosario wrote:

> I have a vector of data points that I imported from a CSV file (which was
> created with R). When I use v.in.ascii, no DBF file is created. I basically
> need this file so I can assign different colors to data points based on the
> value of the datapoint. The vector is imported correctly, but the DBF is not
> created.
>
> v.in.ascii -n input='/Users/ryan/Desktop/Desktop Stuff/ems/responseTime.csv'
> output=response format=point fs=, skip=1 columns='y double, x double, z
> double' x=2 y=1 z=3 cat=0 --overwrite
>
> What am I doing wrong? I have attempted this with both the GUI and the
> command line and both with and without the quotes as suggested in a previous
> post. DBF files for the other vectors I imported (from ESRI) are showing up
> though.

Just a guess, but are there only the x, y, and z co-ordinates in the CSV 
file? If there are no other fields and you're creating a 3-D vector as 
here then perhaps it tries to be clever and skips creating the database 
table?

I would suggest leaving out the "z=3". If you are using the z co-ordinate 
as an attribute and want it to be in the database then it doesn't really 
make sense importing it as a 3-D co-ordinate. Also I notice it should be 
considered (IMHO) a bug, or at least a documentation bug in v.in.ascii 
that it automatically creates a 3-D vector if you specify the z= option, 
even if the -z flag has not been specified - what's the point in having 
the -z flag anyway if specifying z= automatically assumes you want a 3-D 
map?

Does leaving out z=3 lead to any success?

Paul