[GRASS-user] Database advice

[Markus Neteler]

On Sat, Nov 24, 2012 at 4:52 PM, R.S. Bhalla <rsbhalla at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear list,
> I go back and forth between GRASS and QGIS for a recent assignment. I'm
> considering dumping all my GRASS vector attributes to the same table created
> by SpatiaLite (my default vector back-end for QGIS) so that I can query
> attributes easily, irrespective of GIS. My questions are:
>
> 1. Will there be serious performance penalties for doing this?

Do you mean to have one SQLite DB? There may be some locking issue
on Windows but perhaps it does not apply here.

> 2. Is there a way to specify a single database, regardless of mapset,
>    in GRASS or do I need to do this separately for each mapset?

Commonly there is one SQLite DB per mapset.
With db.connect the settings could be changed. But note that you can only
write in the current mapset (I suppose that also applies to the DB backend).
The best would be of course to try out and report.

> I am presently keeping the databases separate and attaching them as schemas
> for queries, which I figure is the "conventional" way of doing things.

It depends: SQlite is a file based, no overhead DB and not a server. If
stored in a SQL based server this may fully apply.

> However if I do so, I need to stick to front-ends which support schemas.
> Thanks in advance for your suggestions.

Maybe other list members have more experience here than me.

Best
Markus