r.mask.status - GRASS manual
Author: GRASS Development Team
Description: r.mask.status: Provides information about the presence of a 2D raster mask as text output or return code
Keywords: raster, mask, reclassification

## NAME

r.mask.status - Reports presence or absence of a raster mask
Provides information about the presence of a 2D raster mask as text output or return code

## KEYWORDS

raster, mask, reclassification

## SYNOPSIS

r.mask.status
r.mask.status --help
r.mask.status [-t] [format=string] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

### Flags:

-t
  Return code 0 when mask present, 1 otherwise
  Behave like the test utility, 0 for true, 1 for false, no output
--help
  Print usage summary
--verbose
  Verbose module output
--quiet
  Quiet module output
--ui
  Force launching GUI dialog

### Parameters:

format=string
  Format for reporting
  Options: plain, json, shell, yaml
  Default: plain
  plain: Plain text output
  json: JSON (JavaScript Object Notation)
  shell: Shell script style output
  yaml: YAML (human-friendly data serialization language)

## DESCRIPTION

The r.mask.status reports information about the 2D raster mask and its status. The tool reports whether the mask is present or not. For both active and inactive mask, the tool reports a full name of the raster (name including the mapset) which represents or would represent the mask. It can also report full name of the underlying raster if the mask is reclassified from another raster. The tool can be used to check if the mask is currently set (`present` boolean in JSON), what is raster name used to represent the mask (`name` string in JSON), and whether the raster is reclassifed from another (`is_reclass_of` string or null in JSON). YAML and shell script style outputs are following the JSON output if possible. The plain text format outputs multi-line human-readable information in natural language.

With the -t flag, no output is printed, instead a return code is used to indicate presence or absence. The convention is the same same the POSIX test utility, so r.mask.status returns 0 when the mask is present and 1 otherwise.

## EXAMPLES

### Generate JSON output

To generate JSON output in Bash, use the format option:

    r.mask.status format=json

In Python, use:

    import grass.script as gs
    gs.parse_command("r.mask.status", format="json")

This returns a dictionary with keys `present`, `full_name`, and `is_reclass_of`.

### Use as the test utility

The POSIX test utility uses return code 0 to indicate presence and 1 to indicate absence of a file, so testing existence of a file with `test -f` gives return code 0 when the file exists. r.mask.status can be used in the same with the -t flag:

    r.mask.status -t

In a Bash script:

    # Bash
    if r.mask.status -t; then
        echo "Masking is active"
    else
        echo "Masking is not active"
    fi

## SEE ALSO

r.mask, g.region

## AUTHORS

Vaclav Petras, NC State University, Center for Geospatial Analytics

## SOURCE CODE

Available at: r.mask.status source code (history)

Latest change: Thursday Oct 02 14:39:13 2025 in commit: 1850489bf42c72d8dcfe2e4db1738441b4a7dc43

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© 2003-2026 GRASS Development Team, GRASS 8.5.1dev Reference Manual