[GRASS-user] error message coming with r.colors

[Glynn Clements]

Hamish wrote:

> > If reading from stdin remains, it will be via -i, although
> > I'm inclined to simply remove the feature altogether
> > (it doesn't work well the GUI).
> 
> I agree that -i is confusing from the auto-gen GUI.

Well; not just confusing. If you run a module from the GUI, and it
expects data from stdin, it's likely to wait forever for input which
will never come. The GUI should explicitly close stdin.

> Please keep the ability to pipe rules from stdin. I use it all the time,
> both from the command line and within scripts when it is simple enough
> that using a temp file would just be a waste.
> e.g. the r.colors.stddev addons script.
> 
> I would be happy with removing color=rules and the -i flag *if* 'rules=-'
> remained to tell it to expect data from stdin.

Note that r.colors doesn't currently understand "rules=-" (although
you can probably use e.g. rules=/dev/stdin).

I can see some advantage to using e.g. "rules=-", as it's easy for the
GUI to prevent this (just require that the answer to any old_file
option exists).

> > Reading rules from stdin is a substantial deviation from normal
> > behaviour. If this feature remains (and I'm not sure that it should),
> > it should be a completely separate flag (i.e. -i), not just
> > a particular choice for the color= option.
> 
> see also v.in.ascii, r.category, r.reclass, r.what, r.what.color, r.profile, ...
> 
> we should allow input from stdin for modules which it is useful, and
> we should do so in a standardized way across all modules. I am happy
> with the "rules=-" solution; I find adding flags for "expect from
> stdin" to be unneeded complication and highly confusing to new GUI
> users.

Well, I've just started removing most of the explicitly interactive
stuff.

In the course of that, I've noticed at least one module (r.quant)
which only allows rules from stdin, not from a file. It wouldn't
surprise me if there are others.

We probably want a library function to fopen() an input file, which
returns stdin if "-" is given as the filename. There's still the issue
that any modules which need to seek will only work with a file, not a
pipe.

> I wish to make the distinction between removing r.colors "interactive
> mode" and removing the ability to pipe from stdin rather than from a
> file.
> 
> > I'm considering making color=random a separate flag.
> 
> example usage?
>   "ERROR: colors= rules= and -random flag are mutually exclusive"
>  ???

The flag would be equivalent to color=random, so it would exclude with
color= and anything which color= excludes.

OTOH, maybe it should be a separate module.

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>