[R-sig-Geo] Change in proj strings?

[Roger Bivand]

Released: rgdal_0.9-3 (source) resolving the omitted proj_def.dat in PROJ 
4.9.1 issue is now on the central CRAN server, and will propagate to 
mirrors shortly. Binaries for Windows and OSX will be available in due 
course. Please let me know if this breaks anything else.

Roger

On Wed, 20 May 2015, Tim Keitt wrote:

> http://www.keittlab.org/
>
> On Wed, May 20, 2015 at 2:02 PM, Roger Bivand <Roger.Bivand at nhh.no> wrote:
>
>> On Wed, 20 May 2015, Tim Keitt wrote:
>>
>>  I get: Error in CRS("+proj=longlat") : major axis or radius = 0 or not
>>> given
>>>
>>> Never seen that before. What's the fix?
>>>
>>
>> Depending on platform, you see different consequences.
>>
>> When PROJ.4 parses a string defining a spatial reference system, it wants
>> something to give it a metric. The +ellps= tag is one such. In PROJ_LIB,
>> there used to be a file (proj_def.dat), which contained +ellps=WGS84 as a
>> default. On seeing any incoming string without any tags giving ellipsoid
>> details, the default was used.
>>
>> The PROJ.4 trunk still has proj_def.dat, and up to and including 4.8.0, it
>> was always shipped in the source and binaries (like Debian proj-data).
>> Because the file seems to have been left out of 4.9.*RC* and 4.9.1, anyone
>> deleting PROJ_LIB before installing the new version will lose access to the
>> defaults. You can avoid using this file by saying:
>>
>> CRS("+proj=longlat +no_defs")
>>
>> and indeed that is why +init= generated parsed strings have +no_defs (no
>> defaults) set - they ignore proj_def.dat.
>>
>> I've entered a PROJ.4 ticket #274 about missing proj_def.dat in released
>> 4.9.1, and posted on the proj list without response so far.
>>
>> CRAN installed the Debian 4.9.1 packages on Monday with considerable
>> fall-out, and many package maintainers have been contacted (some as early
>> as the RC for 4.9.* by me and Edzer).
>>
>> One way to look at this is as a wake-up call reminding us that a metric
>> really is needed in a spatial reference system definition. However, PROJ.4
>> has broken its earlier practice of providing a reasonable default, very
>> likely by mistake.
>>
>> The current status for CRAN is that Windows and Snow Leopard rgdal binary
>> packages include proj_def.dat, OSX Mavericks does not (but will be rebuilt
>> today, thanks to Simon Urbanek, so may get it - hard to inject
>> automatically), and installs of rgdal from source depend on the platform
>> PROJ.4. The recent Debian release is without proj_def.dat. The file itself
>> may be added to PROJ_LIB manually, and downloaded from:
>>
>> http://trac.osgeo.org/proj/browser/trunk/proj/nad/proj_def.dat
>>
>> (unchanged in 14 years and very simple). I have no idea how it got lost
>> from the PROJ.4 source distribution, but it isn't in proj-4.9.1/nad of:
>>
>> http://download.osgeo.org/proj/proj-4.9.1.tar.gz
>>
>> These things are sent to try us ...
>>
>
> Thanks. Right or wrong, that omission is going to break a lot of code.
>
> THK
>
>
>>
>> Roger
>>
>>
>>> THK
>>> http://www.keittlab.org/
>>>
>>>         [[alternative HTML version deleted]]
>>>
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>>>
>> --
>> Roger Bivand
>> Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics,
>> Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
>> voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 91 00
>> e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no
>>
>>
>

-- 
Roger Bivand
Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics,
Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
voice: +47 55 95 93 55; fax +47 55 95 91 00
e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no