grass6(1) Grass User's Manual grass6(1)
NAME
grass64 - The GRASS startup program
SYNOPSIS
grass64 [-] [-v] [-h | -help | --help] [-text | -gui | -tcltk | -oldtcltk | -wxpython | -wx]] [[[/]/] ]
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 pro-
grams 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 grass64 startup program will remember both the desired user interface and mapset. Thus, the next time the user runs GRASS, typing
grass64 (without any options) will start GRASS with the previous settings for the user interface and mapset selected.
If you specify a graphical user interface (Tcl/Tk or wxPython) the grass64 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 grass64 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 -tcltk)
Indicates that the old Tcl/Tk based graphical user interface should be used
-oldtcltk
Indicates that the even older Tcl/Tk based graphical user interface should be used
-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/.grassrc6 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 grass64 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 grass64 is run, then it will be created and then saved in the $HOME/.grassrc6 file for the
next time GRASS is run. In addition to "text", "tcltk" or "wxpython", the GRASS_GUI variable can be set to the name of the Tcl/Tk GUI to
use, for example "gis.m" or "d.m".
There is an order of precedence in the way grass64 determines the user interface to use. The following is the hierarchy from highest prece-
dence to lowest.
Interface precedence
• Command line argument
• Environment variable GRASS_GUI
• Value set in $HOME/.grassrc6
• Default value - currently gis.m
Tcl/Tk and Python Environment Variables
If you choose to use the Tcl/Tk graphical user interface, then the following environment variables can be used to override your system
default tclsh and wish commands.
GRASS_TCLSH
Command to use to override tclsh
GRASS_WISH
Command to use to override wish
GRASS_PYTHON
Command to use to override python
Example Use of GRASS Tcl/Tk Environment Variables
Suppose your system has Tcl/Tk 8.3 installed and you install a personal version of the Tcl/Tk 8.5 binaries under $HOME/bin. You can use the
above variables to have GRASS use the Tcl/Tk 8.5 binaries instead.
GRASS_TCLSH = $HOME/bin/tclsh8.5
GRASS_WISH = $HOME/bin/wish8.5
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
grass64
Start GRASS using the default user interface. The user will be prompted to choose the appropriate location and mapset.
grass64 -gui
Start GRASS using the Tcl/Tk based user interface. The user will be prompted to choose the appropriate location and mapset.
grass64 -text
Start GRASS using the text based user interface. The user will be prompted to choose the appropriate location and mapset.
grass64 ~/grassdata/spearfish60/user1
Start GRASS using the default user interface and automatically launch into the given mapset, bypassing the mapset selection menu.
grass64 -gui -
Start GRASS using the Tcl/Tk 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 follow-
ing 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:
grass64 -
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:
grass64 -
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:
grass64 /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:
grass64 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:
grass64 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 Tcl/Tk interface you must have a wish command in your $PATH variable. That is, the command must be named wish
and not something like wish8.3. By default, some Tcl/Tk installations do not create a wish command. In these cases the system administrator
must create an appropriate link to the actual wish program.
For example, suppose Tcl/Tk 8.3 programs are installed in /usr/local/bin. Then the system administrator should go to the /usr/local/bin
directory and run the commands "ln -s wish8.3 wish" and "ln -s tclsh8.3 tclsh" to properly install Tcl/Tk for use with GRASS.
Furthermore, if you have more than one version of Tcl/Tk installed, make sure that the version you want to use with GRASS is the first ver-
sion found in your $PATH variable. GRASS searches your $PATH variable until it finds the first version of wish.
FILES
$UNIX_BIN/grass64 - GRASS startup program (Linux, MacOSX etc.)
$WINDOWS_BIN/grass64.bat - GRASS startup program (MS-Windows)
$GISBASE/etc/Init.sh - GRASS initialization script called by grass64
$GISBASE/etc/gis_set.tcl - Tcl/Tk 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 6 Programmer's Manual
AUTHORS (of this page)
Justin Hickey
Markus Neteler
Hamish Bowman
Last changed: $Date: 2011-11-08 12:29:50 +0100 (Tue, 08 Nov 2011) $
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