GRASS and Shell

It is fairly easy to write a GRASS job as Shell script which launches GRASS, does the operation and cleans up the temporary files.

Setting the variables

You have to set a couple of variables to enable GRASS command to run:

  # Example in bash shell syntax:

  # path to GRASS binaries and libraries:
  export GISBASE=/usr/local/grass60

  export PATH=$PATH:$GISBASE/bin:$GISBASE/scripts
  export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:$GISBASE/lib

  # use process ID (PID) as lock file number:
  export GIS_LOCK=$$

  # settings for graphical output to PNG file (optional)
  export GRASS_PNGFILE=/tmp/grass6output.png
  export GRASS_TRUECOLOR=TRUE
  export GRASS_WIDTH=900
  export GRASS_PNG_COMPRESSION=1

The following variable defines where the GRASS settings file is stored. This can be anywhere on the system. You could also generate the '.grassrc6' on the fly in your script, even with different name. Just indicate it correctly:

  # path to GRASS settings file
  export GISRC=$HOME/.grassrc6

Now you can test:

  # this should print the GRASS version used:
  g.version
  # other calculations go here ...

You should cleanup internal tmp files like this:

  # run GRASS' cleanup routine
  $GISBASE/etc/clean_temp

  # remove session tmp directory:
  rm -rf /tmp/grass6-$USER-$GIS_LOCK

If this works, you can launch other GRASS commands. The approach works within Shell scripts and also in the command line terminal.

Example

• GRASS shell script job to generate a Recent Earthquakes Map

Parallel GRASS jobs

If you want to launch several GRASS jobs in parallel, you have to launch each job in its own mapset. Be sure to indicate the mapset correctly in the GISRC file (see above). You can use the process ID (PID, get with $$) to generate a almost unique number which you can add to the mapset name.

Now you could launch the jobs on an openMosix cluster (just install openMosix on your colleague's computers...).

See also

• Other GRASS variables