![GRASS logo](grass_logo.png)
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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