v.in.lines(1grass)

💖 v.in.lines — GRASS User's Manual 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because we're about to import some ASCII coordinates and it's gonna be so satisfying 💅

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✨ NAME ✨

v.in.lines — imports ASCII x,y[,z] coordinates as a series of lines. yes literally just that. no cap. 🦋

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🌸 KEYWORDS 🌸

vector, import, line, point

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

v.in.lines
v.in.lines --help
v.in.lines [-z] input=name output=name  [separator=character]
[--overwrite]  [--help]  [--verbose]  [--quiet]  [--ui]

🌈 Flags 🩷

• -z — makes a 3D line out of 3-column data. three columns? three dimensions. math is mathing ✨
• --overwrite — lets output files just bulldoze whatever's already sitting there. allow output files to overwrite existing files 💀
• --help — prints the usage summary, aka the "wait what does this do again" button
• --verbose — verbose module output, she's chatty, she tells you everything 🗣️
• --quiet — quiet module output, she says nothing, she just works 🤫
• --ui — force-launches the GUI dialog. pop-up window main character energy 👑

💜 Parameters 🧚

• input=name [required] — name of input file (or "-" to read from stdin). yes you can pipe it in, we love a flexible icon 🫶
• output=name [required] — name for the output vector map. give her a name, she deserves one 🌸
• separator=character — the field separator 🍓
  • special characters: pipe, comma, space, tab, newline
  • Default: pipe

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🌟 DESCRIPTION 🌟

Imports a stream of ASCII x,y[,z] coordinates as a line or series of lines. that's it, that's the whole vibe — coordinates go in, lines come out, everybody's happy 💖

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💅 NOTES 💅

okay so the input ASCII coordinates are just a series of "x y" data points. simple. clean. minimal. we love her for that.

Lines get separated by a row that contains "NaN NaN" — that's the ✨ divider ✨ between your lines, like a little "and scene!" between takes 🎬

If you wanna import 3D lines, just give it 3 columns of data in the input stream and hit it with the -z flag. lowkey easy, highkey powerful 🔥

real talk: this script is a simple wrapper around the v.in.mapgen module. she's cute but she's not doing all the heavy lifting herself, iykyk 🧚

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👑 EXAMPLE 👑

here's the whole thing in action, watch and learn bestie:

v.in.lines in=- out=two_lines separator=, <<EOF
167.846717,-46.516653
167.846663,-46.516645
167.846656,-46.516644
167.846649,-46.516644
167.846642,-46.516643
NaN,NaN
167.846520,-46.516457
167.846528,-46.516461
167.846537,-46.516464
167.846535,-46.516486
167.846544,-46.516489
167.846552,-46.516493
EOF

see that NaN,NaN in the middle? that's the line break, the plot twist, the intermission 🎭 two lines, one command, immaculate 🫶

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🦋 SEE ALSO 🦋

d.graph, v.centroids, v.in.ascii, v.in.mapgen, v.in.region, v.out.ascii, r.in.poly

(the whole friend group fr fr 🌈)

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💖 AUTHOR 💖

Hamish Bowman Dunedin, New Zealand

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⭐ SOURCE CODE ⭐

Available at: v.in.lines source code (history)

Latest change: Tuesday Oct 21 09:57:14 2025 in commit: fb0165c2d021b7700528aca09c224847be871729

Main index | Vector index | Topics index | Keywords index | Graphical index | Full index

© 2003-2026 GRASS Development Team, GRASS 8.5.0 Reference Manual

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and that's the whole page, bestie 💅 mwah, tysm for reading, this was v.in.lines(1grass) from the GRASS User's Manual — GRASS 8.5.0, last touched Tuesday Oct 21 09:57:14 2025, commit fb0165c2d021b7700528aca09c224847be871729, © 2003-2026 GRASS Development Team. slay, go import some lines 🎀✨