[R-pkg-devel] shapefile .dbf recognised as executable

[Murray Efford]

I have long distributed a small spatial ESRI shapefile as demonstration data in the extdata directory of 'secr'. It comprises the three files OVforest.shp, OVforest.dbf and OVforest.shx. I wanted to make minor changes (adding a coordinate reference system, dropping an attribute). I find that after merely reading (sf::st_read("OVforest.shp") and re-writing the same (sf::st_write("OVforest.shp")) the .dbf file is recognised by R CMD check as executable and raises a Warning (on GNU/Linux, but not in Windows).

No doubt this can be blamed on specifics of the driver used by sf::st_write, but I have been unable to find any settings that might change the behaviour.

I would like to know: Is this a false positive, and if not, How can I remove the executable component(s)? Can I apply the test used by R CMD check outside of R CMD check? 

Murray