Trouble with external OGR sources and relative paths (v.external)

[benducke]

I Think I found a problem with OGR datasources linked in using v.external.

If I change into a directory with shapefiles and then issue the following to link in the data in "myShapefile.shp":

v.external dsn=. layer=myShapefile output=linked_in

And then change into another directory and issue any command that wants to work on "linked_in", e.g.:

g.remove vect=linked_in v.info linked_in

I get:

ERROR: Cannot open layer 'myShapefile'

But when I change back into the directoy where I used to be when running the v.external command, it works.

So I think v.external should take care to always link to the absolute location of the source in the file system (if I specify "dsn=" as an absolute path, things work fine).

[martinl]

You need to use full path. Relative path will behave like this. There is nothing to be fixed, it's a "feature".