gdalUtils 0.2.0 now on CRAN

Ok, pushed a new version (0.2.4) to R-forge following these 
suggestions (rgdal and raster are now moved to "Suggests", and the 
examples should hopefully be updated to support it).

str(getOption("gdalUtils_gdalPath"))

Rainer: would you mind testing this out?  Try it with and without 
outputRaster=TRUE (it should fail on outputRaster=TRUE if you
don't have rgdal installed).

--j

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 2:15 PM, Rainer M Krug <Rainer at krugs.de>
wrote:


On 01/09/14, 19:43 , Jonathan Greenberg wrote:

Tim: thanks! We have something similar, where the package
uses a Sys.which() to see if gdalinfo is available in the
PATH as one of its attempts to find a valid install.

Rainer et al: I pushed version 0.2.3 to R-forge (you'll need
to SVN it until R-forge builds the new package later
today/tomorrow) which now supports a fixed search_path
parameter.  To use this:

gdal_setInstallation(search_path="/pathto/your/favorite/GDAL/",rescan=TRUE)

(thus forcing gdalUtils to use a specific install).  If it
doesn't find it, it will search as usual.  Note that I
updated the help for gdal_setInstallation to better explain
how gdalUtils searches for a valid install.

This sounds very useful. But to come back to the importing of
rgdal, which was causing my problem: As gdalUtils is quite useful
without rgdal, would it be possible to move rgdal to Enhances and
to disable the functions which require rgdal when rgdal is not
installed? And if rgdal is installed, to use the same gdal
installation (I don't know if this is the case already)?

Just a ciosmetic suggestion: it would be nice if, when loadu=ing
the package via library(gdalUtils), that the gdal version and path
could be printed.

Thanks,

Rainer

Here's the R-forge site: 
https://r-forge.r-project.org/projects/gdalutils/

--j

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 12:10 PM, Tim Keitt
<tkeitt at utexas.edu> wrote:

You might also try "gdal-config --prefix". Of course that
wont work if gdal-config not installed or in the path.

THK


On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 11:46 AM, Jonathan Greenberg 
<jgrn at illinois.edu> wrote:

Rainer:

Responses below!

On Thu, Jan 9, 2014 at 2:28 AM, Rainer M Krug
<Rainer at krugs.de> wrote:

Very nice - haven't tried any working examples, but it
installs on a mac without problems and finds the gdal
installation installed via homebrew.

But I have some questions:

The automatic search is nice - but I unlinked gdal via
homebrew, i.e. the links to the binaries and libraries are
not in the path anymore, and I could not load gdalUtils
anymore, as the gdalUtils did not find the libraries anymore
(understandable). But it seams, that gdalUtils did not search
for gdal, which is installed as a Framework as well. Now I
removed gdalUtils again and installed it again, with gdal
still unlinked, but it did not install as it did not find the
gdal libraries, despite gdal being available in a framework
(see http://www.kyngchaos.com/software/frameworks for the 
ones installed - they are quite popular, and required, among
GRASS and QGIS users on Mac).

Quick question: did you try restarting R AFTER you
unlinked the homebrew version?  Here's why I ask: the
first time you run ANY gdalUtils in a session, what it
does is spiders your system for working GDAL
installations (in fact, it looks for the frameworks
first).  After this first time, it won't re-scan the
drive unless you do one of two things: 1) restart R and
re-load GDALUtils, or 2) run 
gdal_setInstallation(rescan=TRUE)

Question 1:

Would it be possible, to include the gdal Frameworks in the
search path?

These are the common locations it searches for, before
it attempts a brute-force search of your whole drive:

if (.Platform$OS=="unix") { common_locations <- c( #
UNIX systems "/usr/bin", "/usr/local/bin", # Mac #
Kyngchaos frameworks:
"/Library/Frameworks/GDAL.framework/Programs", # 
MacPorts: "/opt/local/bin" ) } if
(.Platform$OS=="windows") { common_locations <- c(
"C:\\Program Files", "C:\\Program Files (x86)",
"C:\\OSGeo4W" ) }

I use those frameworks, and the function worked for me,
but let me know if it failed to find yours (perhaps
I'll strip the /Programs from the search path?)  It is
easy for me to add new search locations, so if there
are other common locations for ANY OS just let me
know.

At the end is a layout of the directory structure of the
gdal frameworks.

Question 2:

Is it (or would it) be possible to manually set the
installation of gdal to be used? This would make comparison
of versions of gdal as well as reproducible research much
easier.

Yes, we can add in this functionality at a future
date. Right now, you can check to see what your
installs are by: gdal_setInstallation(rescan=TRUE) 
getOption("gdalUtils_gdalPath")

In general, gdalUtils will use the first element of
the getOption("gdalUtils_gdalPath"), which is chosen by
the most recent version (by date).

Question 3:

I can't test it right now, but I assume that gdalUtils does
search for a new gdal installation if it can't find the one
used before? Is there a way of initiating the search (and
selection) if a newer version has been installed?

Yep, as I said either restart R or run: 
gdal_setInstallation(rescan=TRUE)

Thanks for a very neat package,

Rainer

Directory structure of the GDAL.Framework on a MAC:

/Library/Frameworks/GDAL.framework/ ??? Headers -> 
Versions/Current/Headers ??? Programs ->
Versions/Current/Programs ??? Resources ->
Versions/Current/Resources ??? Versions ?   ??? 1.10 ?   ?
??? Headers ?   ?   ??? Libraries ?   ?   ?   ??? ogdi ?   ?
??? PlugIns ?   ?   ??? Programs ?   ?   ??? Python ? ?   ?
??? 2.6 ?   ?   ?   ?   ??? site-packages ?   ?   ?   ? ???
osgeo ?   ?   ?   ??? 2.7 ?   ?   ?       ??? site-packages
? ?   ?           ??? osgeo ?   ?   ??? Resources ?   ?   ?
??? doc ?   ?   ?   ?   ??? gdal ?   ?   ?   ?       ??? java
?   ?   ? ?       ?   ??? org ?   ?   ?   ?       ?   ?   ???
gdal ?   ?   ? ?       ?   ?       ??? gdal ?   ?   ?   ?
?   ?       ??? gdalconst ?   ?   ?   ?       ?   ?       ???
ogr ?   ?   ?   ? ?   ?       ??? osr ?   ?   ?   ?       ?
??? resources ?   ?   ? ?       ??? ogr ?   ?   ?   ??? gdal
?   ?   ??? unix ?   ? ??? bin ?   ?       ??? include ->
../Headers ?   ?       ??? lib ? ??? 1.9 ?   ?   ??? Headers
?   ?   ??? Libraries ?   ?   ?   ??? ogdi ?   ?   ???
PlugIns ?   ?   ??? Programs ?   ?   ??? Python ? ?   ?   ???
2.6 ?   ?   ?   ?   ??? site-packages ?   ?   ?   ? ??? osgeo
?   ?   ?   ??? 2.7 ?   ?   ?       ??? site-packages ? ?   ?
??? osgeo ?   ?   ??? Resources ?   ?   ?   ??? doc ?   ?   ?
?   ??? gdal ?   ?   ?   ?       ??? java ?   ?   ? ?       ?
??? org ?   ?   ?   ?       ?   ?   ??? gdal ?   ?   ? ?
?   ?       ??? gdal ?   ?   ?   ?       ?   ?       ??? 
gdalconst ?   ?   ?   ?       ?   ?       ??? ogr ?   ?   ?
? ?   ?       ??? osr ?   ?   ?   ?       ?   ??? resources ?
?   ? ?       ??? ogr ?   ?   ?   ??? gdal ?   ?   ??? unix ?
? ??? bin ?   ?       ??? include -> ../Headers ?   ?
??? lib ? ??? Current -> 1.10 ??? unix ->
Versions/Current/unix

Cheers!

--j

-- Jonathan A. Greenberg, PhD Assistant Professor Global 
Environmental Analysis and Remote Sensing (GEARS)
Laboratory Department of Geography and Geographic
Information Science University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign 259 Computing Applications Building,
MC-150 605 East Springfield Avenue Champaign, IL
61820-6371 Phone: 217-300-1924 
http://www.geog.illinois.edu/~jgrn/ AIM: jgrn307, MSN: 
jgrn307 at hotmail.com, Gchat: jgrn307, Skype: jgrn3007

-- http://www.keittlab.org/