[R] Writing polyline shapefiles

[Patrick Giraudoux]

Stephane, dear R listers,

I wonder if the idea of developping some functions in R writing shapefiles from a matrix of coordinates  -eg poly2shape()- is still
with us? I currently manage with a home-made function writing an ASCII grass file, then importing it into GRASS as vector file, then
exporting the vector file as a shapefile (ouf!). The main issue to me is still to be capable to wite the *.shx and *.shp from
coordinates (the *.dbf is easier to manage, even indirectly, and can for instance be completed simply via Excel).  I tried to open
*.shp, etc.. files to understand how they were structured and thus write some programme by myself, but unsuccessfully (the way those
files are coded is not ascii)

Maptools is fantastic for importation and data handling within R, but unfortunately cannot export to shapefiles.

Any news?

Patrick Giraudoux


PS: ESRI has managed to distribute ArcTools (with ArcGIS) with no way to importe generate ASCII formats!!! One must get ArcINFO for
that... No comment!