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NAME

grass70 - The GRASS startup program

SYNOPSIS

grass70 [-] [-v] [-h | -help | --help] [-text | -gui | -wxpython | -wx]] [[[<GISDBASE>/]<LOCATION_NAME>/] <MAPSET>]

DESCRIPTION

This command is used to launch GRASS GIS. It will parse the command line arguments and then initialize GRASS for the user. Since GRASS programs require a specific environment, this program must be called before any other GRASS program can run. The command line arguments are optional and provide the user with a method to indicate the desired user interface, as well as the desired mapset to work on.

FEATURES

The grass70 startup program will remember both the desired user interface and mapset. Thus, the next time the user runs GRASS, typing grass70 (without any options) will start GRASS with the previous settings for the user interface and mapset selected.

If you specify a graphical user interface (wxPython) the grass70 program will try to verify that the system you specified exists and that you can access it successfully. If any of these checks fail then grass70 will automatically switch back to the text user interface mode.

OPTIONS

All command line options are optional.

Flags:

-
Tries to start GRASS using location environment variables (see below)
-h -help --help
Prints a brief usage message
-text
Indicates that the text based user interface should be used
-gui (or -wxpython, or -wx)
Indicates that the new Python based graphical user interface should be used
-v --version
Prints the version of GRASS and exits

Parameters:

GISDBASE
Initial database directory which should be a fully qualified path (e.g., /usr/local/share/grassdata)
LOCATION_NAME
Initial location directory which is a subdirectory of GISDBASE
MAPSET
Initial mapset directory which is a subdirectory of LOCATION_NAME

Note- These parameters must be specified in one of the following ways:
MAPSET
LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET
GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

A number of environment variables are available at GRASS startup to assist with automation and customization. Most users will not need to bother with these.

In addition to these shell environment variables GRASS maintains a number of GIS environment variables in the $HOME/.grass7/rc file. User changes to this file will be read during the next startup of GRASS. If this file becomes corrupted the user may edit it by hand or remove it to start afresh. See the list of implemented GRASS variables for more information. The rest of this help page will only consider shell environment variables.

User Interface Environment Variable

The grass70 program will check for the existence of an environment variable called GRASS_GUI which indicates the type of user interface for GRASS to use. If this variable is not set when grass70 is run, then it will be created and then saved in the $HOME/.grass7/rc file for the next time GRASS is run. It can be set to "text" or "wxpython".

There is an order of precedence in the way grass70 determines the user interface to use. The following is the hierarchy from highest precedence to lowest.

Interface precedence
• Command line argument
• Environment variable GRASS_GUI
• Value set in $HOME/.grass7/rc
• Default value - wxpython

Python Environment Variables

If you choose to use the wxPython interface, then the following environment variables can be used to override your system default python command.

GRASS_PYTHON
Command to use to override python

Example Use of GRASS Python Environment Variable

Suppose your system has Python 2.4 installed and you install a personal version of the Python 2.5 binaries under $HOME/bin. You can use the above variables to have GRASS use the Python 2.5 binaries instead.

Example Use of the GRASS Python Environment Variable

   GRASS_PYTHON=python2.5

Addon path to extra local GRASS modules

This environment variable allows the user to extend the GRASS program search paths to include locally developed/installed addon modules which are not distributed with the standard GRASS release.

   GRASS_ADDON_PATH=/usr/mytools
   GRASS_ADDON_PATH=/usr/mytools:/usr/local/othertools

In this example above path(s) would be added to the standard GRASS path environment.

HTML browser variable

The GRASS_HTML_BROWSER environment variable allows the user to set the HTML web browser to use for dispalying help pages.

Location Environment Variables

The Synopsis and Options sections above describe options that can be used to set the location and mapset that GRASS will use. These values can also be set with environment variables. However, specifying the location and mapset variables on the command line will override these environment variables. The available variables are as follows:

LOCATION
A fully qualified path to a mapset (eg /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT). This environment variable overrides the GISDBASE, LOCATION_NAME, and MAPSET variables.
GISDBASE
Initial database directory which should be a fully qualified path (eg /usr/local/share/grassdata)
LOCATION_NAME
Initial location directory which is a subdirectory of GISDBASE
MAPSET
Initial mapset directory which is a subdirectory of LOCATION_NAME

Running non-interactive batch jobs

If the GRASS_BATCH_JOB environment variable is set to the full path and filename of a shell script then GRASS will be launched in a non-interactive way and the script will be run. The script itself can be interactive if that is what the user requires. When it is finished GRASS will automatically exit using the exit-success code given by the script. The script file must have its executable bit set.

Note

Note that you will need to set these variables using the appropriate method required for the UNIX shell that you use. (e.g. in a Bash shell you must "export" the variables for them to propogate)

EXAMPLES

The following are some examples of how you could start GRASS

grass70
Start GRASS using the default user interface. The user will be prompted to choose the appropriate location and mapset.
grass70 -gui
Start GRASS using the wxPython based user interface. The user will be prompted to choose the appropriate location and mapset.
grass70 -text
Start GRASS using the text based user interface. The user will be prompted to choose the appropriate location and mapset.
grass70 ~/grassdata/spearfish60/user1
Start GRASS using the default user interface and automatically launch into the given mapset, bypassing the mapset selection menu.
grass70 -gui -
Start GRASS using the wxPython based user interface and try to obtain the location and mapset from environment variables.

Other examples

There are a variety of ways in which the location environment variables (see above) can be used to specify the mapset to use. The following are some possible examples.
Example 1
The environment variables are defined as follows:

LOCATION = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
LOCATION_NAME = spearfish60
MAPSET = PERMANENT

Start GRASS with the following command:

grass70 -

GRASS will start with the mapset defined by LOCATION since the LOCATION variable overrides the other variables.

Example 2
The environment variables are defined as follows:

GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
LOCATION_NAME = spearfish60
MAPSET = PERMANENT

Start GRASS with the following command:

grass70 -

GRASS will start with the mapset defined by GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/MAPSET.

Example 3
The environment variables are defined as follows:

LOCATION = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
LOCATION_NAME = spearfish60
MAPSET = PERMANENT

Start GRASS with the following command:

grass70 /usr/home/grass/data/thailand/forests

GRASS will start with the mapset /home/grass/data/thailand/forests which overrides the environment variables.

Example 4
The environment variables are defined as follows:

LOCATION = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
LOCATION_NAME = spearfish60
MAPSET = PERMANENT

Start GRASS with the following command:

grass70 swamps

GRASS will start with the mapset defined by GISDBASE/LOCATION_NAME/swamps since the command line argument for the mapset overrides the environment variable MAPSET.

Example 5
The environment variables are defined as follows:

LOCATION = /usr/local/share/grassdata/spearfish60/PERMANENT
GISDBASE = /usr/local/share/grassdata
LOCATION_NAME = spearfish60
MAPSET = PERMANENT

Start GRASS with the following command:

grass70 thailand/forests

GRASS will start with the mapset defined by GISDBASE/thailand/forests since the command line arguments for the location and mapset overrides the environment variables LOCATION_NAME and MAPSET.

CAVEAT

If you start GRASS using the wxPython interface you must have a python command in your $PATH variable. That is, the command must be named python and not something like python2.5. Rarely some Python installations do not create a python command. In these cases the system administrator must create an appropriate link to the actual python program.

Furthermore, if you have more than one version of Python installed, make sure that the version you want to use with GRASS is the first version found in your $PATH variable. GRASS searches your $PATH variable until it finds the first version of python.

FILES

$UNIX_BIN/grass70 - GRASS startup program (Linux, MacOSX etc.)
$WINDOWS_BIN/grass70.bat - GRASS startup program (MS-Windows)
$GISBASE/etc/Init.sh - GRASS initialization script called by grass70
$GISBASE/etc/wxpython/gis_set.py - Python script to set the location and mapset to use. Called by Init.sh

SEE ALSO

List of implemented GRASS environment variables.

GRASS Web site

GRASS 7 Programmer's Manual

AUTHORS (of this page)

Justin Hickey
Markus Neteler
Hamish Bowman

Last changed: $Date: 2009-12-02 15:29:23 -0800 (Wed, 02 Dec 2009) $


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