GRASS GIS APIs

GRASS Modules as "functions"

• GRASS has modular structure: each module is a separate program
• Easy to integrate into any language that allows system calls

The Python scripting library

• Some specific python functions to facilitate calling grass modules and capturing their output

Easy GUI creation in scripts

• Automatic GUI creation based on basic configuration of options

The PyGRASS API using ctypes

• Direct access to low-level C-functions (via ctypes).
• Direct access to data
• Allows writing more complex Python programs than the scripting library

The C-API

• Core library is 30 years old
• Different additional libraries added through time