Remove nad2bin?

[kbevers]

Instead of hijacking the conversion in #1235, let's continue the talk here.

In response to my comment @sebastic wrote:

We can move nad2bin to proj-datumgrid. I feel like it has served it's purpose as part of the main PROJ package now that all the *.lla files have moved elsewhere.

In my opinion it belongs in the PROJ source tree. No need to complicate the proj-datumgrid project by having to build C programs.

In my opinon there's no need to distribute a tool in a package in which it isn't used. Additionally, it's a binary we install but there's no trace of documentation for the application. It is unlikely that documentation is going to be written and I suspect that it is also unlikely that anyone will create new grids using nad2bin.

Loosing nad2bin from PROJ would also be a welcome simplification of two build setups in contrast to only maintaining CMake in proj-datumgrids.

I am of course volunteering to make this change myself.

[rouault]

I'm +1 on this.

[sebastic]

In my opinon there's no need to distribute a tool in a package in which it isn't used.

This is currently not true. nad2bin is used by the PROJ build system to convert the .lla files if those are present in the source tree. Until recently it was required to unpack the proj-datumgrid archive into PROJ source tree.

I've already raised my objection to the proposed removal of nad2bin, and leave it at that.

[rouault]

Until recently

So in the past, right ? Here we are talking about changes for master. The only remaining .lla file in proj.4/master is data/null.lla. Which is also present in proj-datumgrid/lla/null.lla, and its binary form in proj-datumgrid/null. So we should also remove data/null.lla from proj.4. (a bonus point would be to not require the presence of the null file at all, but rather hardcode its behaviour :no point in reading a file that contains zeros...)

[sebastic]

So in the past, right ?

As of 5.2, the latest release. As a packager I don't follow changes in master, only releases.