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

[Simon Urbanek]

FWIW this seems to be a known issue (for some definition of known):

https://bugs.astron.com/view.php?id=316

A fix is to set your date when writing the DBF file to year 2021 instead of 2022 (which also explains why it worked last year ;)).

Cheers,
Simon





> On Feb 12, 2022, at 12:33 PM, Murray Efford <murray.efford using otago.ac.nz> wrote:
> 
> Many thanks for your guidance. Indeed there is a radical change:
> 
> $ file OVforest.dbf
> OVforest.dbf: FoxBase+/dBase III DBF, 3 records * 22, update-date 95-7-26, at offset 97 1st record "beech        beech    leftnonbeech nonbeech rightnonbeechnonbeech"
> 
> $ file OVforest2.dbf
> OVforest2.dbf: amd 29k coff prebar executable
> 
> I don't recognize the file descriptors (amd, coff, prebar). I guess I need to call in help from the GIS people...
> 
> Murray
> 
> ________________________________________
> From: Duncan Murdoch <murdoch.duncan using gmail.com>
> Sent: 12 February 2022 11:44
> To: Murray Efford; R-package-devel using r-project.org
> Subject: Re: [R-pkg-devel] shapefile .dbf recognised as executable
> 
> On 11/02/2022 5:22 p.m., Murray Efford wrote:
>> 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?
> 
> It's not easy to run just that test, but you can see it if you look here:
> 
> https://apc01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2Fwch%2Fr-source%2Fblob%2F988077a792e628677bd5884b351fe08b2c17b8c8%2Fsrc%2Flibrary%2Ftools%2FR%2Fcheck.R%23L4866-L4941&data=04%7C01%7Cmurray.efford%40otago.ac.nz%7Ce242631c41c342f47d8908d9edb008b8%7C0225efc578fe4928b1579ef24809e9ba%7C0%7C0%7C637802163497599994%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000&sdata=Z77T09j1sONATxupZGSmkayrpjt3Ra1g%2FS6vxQq8CJs%3D&reserved=0
> 
> The basic idea is that it uses the "file" command.  There are some known
> false positives.
> 
> If you are on Linux, try running "file OVforest.dbf" and see what it says.
> 
> Duncan Murdoch
> 
> ______________________________________________
> R-package-devel using r-project.org mailing list
> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-package-devel
>