[R-sig-Geo] small improvement for saveDataset() in rgdal

[Sebastian P. Luque]

Hi,

Some time ago I spent several hours trying to figure out why the
following was failing¹:

library(rgdal); library(adehabitatHR)
data(puechabonsp)
locs <- puechabonsp$relocs
## Estimation of UD for four animals
(ud <- kernelUD(locs[, 1]))
locs.gtiff <- create2GDAL(ud[[1]],
                          drivername="GTiff")
locs.aaigrid <- copyDataset(locs.gtiff,
                            driver="AAIGrid")
saveDataset(locs.aaigrid, "~/tmp/test.asc")

which prints this:

Error in .local(.Object, ...) : Dataset copy failed

finding that this resulted from failure to expand the 'filename'
argument in saveDataset().  Would it make sense to patch this function
with:

---<--------------------cut here---------------start------------------->---
*** /home/sluque/Scripts/R/src/rgdal/R/gdal.R	2012-12-14 15:05:25.000000000 -0600
--- /home/sluque/Scripts/R/src/gdal.R	2012-12-14 15:05:11.000000000 -0600
***************
*** 217,223 ****
    new.obj <- new(new.class,
                   handle = .Call('RGDAL_CopyDataset',
                     dataset, getDriver(dataset),
!                    FALSE, options, filename, PACKAGE="rgdal"))
  
    if (returnNewObj) return(new.obj)
    invisible(GDAL.close(new.obj))
--- 217,223 ----
    new.obj <- new(new.class,
                   handle = .Call('RGDAL_CopyDataset',
                     dataset, getDriver(dataset),
!                    FALSE, options, normalizePath(filename), PACKAGE="rgdal"))
  
    if (returnNewObj) return(new.obj)
    invisible(GDAL.close(new.obj))
---<--------------------cut here---------------end--------------------->---

?  It tests fine on my system:

R> sessionInfo()
R version 2.15.2 (2012-10-26)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_CA.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C               LC_TIME=en_CA.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_CA.UTF-8     LC_MONETARY=en_CA.UTF-8    LC_MESSAGES=en_CA.UTF-8   
 [7] LC_PAPER=C                 LC_NAME=C                  LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C             LC_MEASUREMENT=en_CA.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C       

attached base packages:
[1] stats     graphics  grDevices utils     datasets  methods   base     

other attached packages:
 [1] adehabitatHR_0.4.4  adehabitatLT_0.3.7  CircStats_0.2-4     boot_1.3-7          MASS_7.3-22         adehabitatMA_0.3.4  ade4_1.5-1          deldir_0.0-21       rgdal_0.7-25       
[10] sp_1.0-2            slmisc_0.9.3        latticeExtra_0.6-24 RColorBrewer_1.0-5  lattice_0.20-10    

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] compiler_2.15.2 grid_2.15.2     tools_2.15.2   


Cheers,

--
Seb

¹ https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-ecology/2012-March/002895.html