[R-sig-Geo] Creating metadata - xml?

[Zev Ross]

Hi All,

I'm wondering if anyone has pointers in generating and/or editing 
spatial metadata in R. Roger, Edzer and others have done such a great 
job of developing tools to create shapefiles without ArcGIS but I'd like 
to add a few notes about how the files were created without the extra 
step of opening ArcCatalog.

All I, personally, would need at this point is a way to edit the 
"abstract" portion of a traditional metadata, though ultimately editing 
the other fields (like the spatial reference info) would also be great.

I spent some time trying to use the XML library to do this, but I 
couldn't hack it and wasn't sure I was heading down the right path.

The code below does not work and reveals my ignorance, but perhaps it 
can convince someone to give me some tips.

Zev


d<-parseDTD("http://www.esri.com/metadata/esriprof80.dtd", asText=FALSE,
      isURL=TRUE)

tree<-xmlOutputDOM("mytest", dtd=d)
tree$addTag("abstract", "myblah")
tree$closeTag()
saveXML(tree$value(), file="c:/junk/blah2.xml")



-- 
Zev Ross
ZevRoss Spatial Analysis
303 Fairmount Ave.
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 277-0004 (phone)
(866) 877-3690 (fax toll-free)
zev at zevross.com
www.zevross.com