#592 Abandon the Dune Grid Format

Metadata

Property	Value
Reported by	Oliver Sander (oliver.sander@tu-dresden.de)
Reported at	Aug 31, 2009 09:32
Type	Feature Request
Version	Git (pre2.4) [autotools]
Operating System	Unspecified / All
Last edited by	Robert K (robertk@posteo.org)
Last edited at	Sep 30, 2009 07:55
Closed by	Robert K (robertk@posteo.org)
Closed at	Sep 30, 2009 07:55
Closed in version	Unknown
Resolution	Won't implement
Comment	It's clear that DGF won't be abandoned.

Description

This is a point to discuss on the next meeting:

When DGF was first implemented the idea was to have a file format that could handle the most common cases, was simple, and could be edited by hand if necessary (at least that's how I understood it). DGF served this purpose well.

However, now we have a reader for the gmsh format, which also fulfills all of the requirements above. In addition, in can handle many more grids, is well documented (http://www.geuz.org/gmsh/doc/texinfo/gmsh.html#MSH-ASCII-file-format), and exists in binary, too. Also very important (too me, at least): gmsh is a well-established format, used by various other programs.

I see no more reason why we should spend our scarce resources on maintaining DGF, which we only use ourselves, where we can now get the same functionality through the gmsh reader. I therefore propose to eventually stop supporting DGF.