[GRASS-user] Announcing new command line interface of `grass` program in trunk

[Vaclav Petras]

Hi all,

I'm happy to announce new command line interface of the `grass` program [1,
2] available in trunk.

Certainly you already know that you can start GRASS GIS session in the
specified Location and Mapset in the following way:

grass71 .../grassdata/location/mapset/

The new interface adds `--exec` flag for specifying a command which will be
executed inside that GRASS session:

grass71 .../grassdata/location/mapset/ --exec r.univar map=elevation

This starts GRASS session, executes whatever command is specified after
`--exec` flag and then ends showing the (text) output of the module as if
the module would be executed manually in the GRASS session. And example
showing this in combination with r.external to get the data into the Mapset
is in the documentation [3].

This interface is meant to remove the need for lengthy manual setup of
environmental variables followed by execution of GRASS modules in the
mock-up GRASS session [4]. The idea is to use correct GRASS session
maintained by `grass` program which means that any GRASS-related code must
be passed to the `grass` program as opposed to direct execution in the
former case.

The interface can run any module or custom script with or without
parameters. GUI tools including g.gui [5] can be called as well which opens
new possibilities for application developers.

The interface is the first implementation and currently is fully
operational only on Linux and similar systems but it benefits from a lot of
stable code which was already in place. Try it out and feel free to comment
here, on grass-dev or in the related ticket [6]. There is definitively many
potential improvements and it would be great to know what the community
demands.

Vaclav

[1] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/65252
[2] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/65294
[3]
http://grass.osgeo.org/grass71/manuals/grass7.html#exec-interface-example
[4]
http://grasswiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Working_with_GRASS_without_starting_it_explicitly
[5] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/changeset/65306
[6] https://trac.osgeo.org/grass/ticket/2579
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