g.filename - GRASS manual
Author: GRASS Development Team
Description: g.filename: Prints GRASS data base file names.
Keywords: general, map management, scripts

## NAME

g.filename - Prints GRASS data base file names.

## KEYWORDS

general, map management, scripts

## SYNOPSIS

g.filename
g.filename --help
g.filename [-c] element=string file=string [mapset=string] [--help] [--verbose] [--quiet] [--ui]

### Flags:

-c
  Create element directory in the current mapset
  If element directory for database file does not exist, create it
--help
  Print usage summary
--verbose
  Verbose module output
--quiet
  Quiet module output
--ui
  Force launching GUI dialog

### Parameters:

element=string [required]
  Name of an element
file=string [required]
  Name of a database file
mapset=string
  Name of a mapset (default: current)

## DESCRIPTION

g.filename is designed for Bourne shell scripts that need to know the full file name, including it's path, for mapset elements, like raster, vector and site maps, region definitions and imagery groups.

The list of element names to search for is not fixed; any subdirectory of the mapset directory is a valid element name.

However, the user can find the list of standard GRASS element names in the file `$GISBASE/etc/element_list`. This is the file which g.remove/g.rename/g.copy use to determine which files need to be deleted/renamed/copied for a given entity type.

## OUTPUT

g.filename writes one line to standard output:

  file='full_file_pathname'

The output is a /bin/sh command to set the variable specified by the file name to the full UNIX path name for the data base file. This variable may be set in the /bin/sh as follows:

      eval `g.filename element=name mapset=name file=name`

## NOTES

This module generates the filename, but does not care if the file (or mapset or element) exists or not. This feature allows shell scripts to create new data base files as well as use existing ones.

If the mapset is the current mapset, g.filename can automatically create the element specified if it doesn't already exist when -c flag is used. This makes it easy to add new files to the data base without having to worry about the existence of the required data base directories. (This program will not create a new mapset, however, if that specified does not currently exist.)

This module should not be used to create directories which are at the level of what this module refer to as files, i.e., directory which carries a name specified by a user (such as vector map directories) should not be created using this module. Standard library functions coming with any given language are a more appropriate tool for that.

The program exits with a 0 if everything is ok; it exits with a non-zero value if there is an error, in which case file='full_file_pathname' is not output.

## SEE ALSO

g.findfile, g.gisenv

## AUTHOR

Michael Shapiro, U.S.Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory

## SOURCE CODE

Available at: g.filename source code (history)

Latest change: Friday Aug 08 09:39:19 2025 in commit: ed72c71d8580e872cd6fd345c84a15c324764465

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