WinGRASS 6 Current Status

This page describes the current status of winGRASS development. Precompiled native winGRASS packages are available here.

What is missing?

• Display drivers: socket
  • Use gis.m instead of monitors.
  • Make gis.m Output window more like xterm. No need to hit Run.
  • Is there any way that the Map Display in gis.m can interact with console commands? IPC? File Alteration Monitor?
• i.class: SIGALRM, SIGTSTP (are these signals important?)
• wait() in:
  • i.ortho.photo/photo.2image: wait()
  • i.ortho.photo/photo.2target: wait()
  • i.points: wait()
  • i.vpoints: wait()
  • Note: also in lib/gis/popen.c and lib/gis/system.c (use those implementations?)
• r.terraflow: getrusage()
• Vector-DB connection:
  • M Lennert: I had hoped that Radim's patch for dbmi_client (http://grass.itc.it/pipermail/grass5/2006-December/028118.html) might solve the issue I've had with the db protocol errors, but apparently this is not the case. When I push the 'show the attribute columns' in a vector panel, I still get

 *******
 Displaying column types/names for database connection of layer 1:
 dbmi: Protocol error
 Cannot open table <streams>
 ********

 and a 'v.db.select' on the same map gives me:

 ********
 'vector/streams' was found in more mapsets (also found in user1).
 dbmi: Protocol error

 Cannot open select cursor
 *********

• P Kelly: I can confirm similar problems. I tried to import a Shapefile with v.in.ogr. I went quite deep into debugging it and got nowhere at all, although I should have taken better notes. I did confirm though that compiling the library with -mwindows as Radim suggested on the list made no difference either. I think trying with a different database, PostgreSQL perhaps is the next big step to debugging this. See if the behaviour is the same as with dbf and if not we can isolate it a bit more.

Known problems

• metacharacter escape in "sh -c '$cmd'"
• modules not working: r.proj (v.proj too?), r.surf.rst, v.neighbors, v.kernel, r.cost
• Cannot open Help pages.
• Have to add c:\mingw\bin to PATH on some systems.
  • You should have typed c:/mingw instead of c:\mingw when asked by the MinGW installer.
• Have to type "exit" in the console to save ~/.grassrc file. Then, close gis.m to finish the session.
• A previous installation of grass under cygwin is likely to cause problems with WinGrass. Follow the directions to remove cygwin at http://cygwin.com/faq/faq-nochunks.html#faq.setup.uninstall-all

The following items cannot be fixed in the near future:

• Cannot display a thematic layer.
  • d.vect.thematic requires PNG driver, which is not available in winGRASS.
  • can't read "_data(.gronsole.gronsole,4,donecmd)": no such element in array error
  • Aqua TclTk solution: http://intevation.de/rt/webrt?serial_num=5096&display=History

TclTk issues

• cannot run shell scripts: only .com, .exe, .bat
  • sh -c '$cmd'
• var=val style argument is not valid for batch files: equal sign is a separator like a space. http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=71247 http://www.gatago.com/alt/msdos/batch/17358926.html
  • need .exe wrapper for shell scripts? grass-xterm-wrapper.exe
• file command returns bad code (catch is needed): http://sources.redhat.com/ml/insight/2003-q1/msg00079.html
  • catch {file copy}
  • catch {file delete}
  • catch {file rename -force} does not work. Delete old file first: catch {file delete}; catch {file rename}
• file redirection (>@stdout, 2>@stderr) does not work: http://wiki.tcl.tk/672
  • exec a batch file doing redirection (>&2, 2>&1)
• no -permissions file attributes
  • catch {file attributes -permissions}

Other libraries

GDAL

• lib/gis/OBJ.*/fmode.o is needed for any GRASS related modules.
• modified ltmain.sh to install binary files from wrapper scripts.