Unable to read raster file using `raster::raster` and Rscript in Windows

Question

I appear to be having a Windows-only issue reading rasters using Rscript and a direct call to the raster package. I have the latest version of the raster package (2.5-2). Running R 3.2.1 in Windows 2008 R2.

Given the following:

library(raster)
j <- raster(matrix(rnorm(100), ncol=10, nrow=10))
writeRaster(j, 'j.tif')

If I start a new R session (or not), this works in R:

library(raster)
j <- raster('j.tif')

So does this (again, in a new session):

j <- raster::raster('j.tif')

If I try it from the command line and using Rscript, this works:

C:\> Rscript -e "library(raster); raster('j.tif')

But this does NOT work:

C:\> Rscript -e "raster::raster('j.tif')"
Error in .rasterObjectFromFile(x, band = band, objecttype = "RasterLayer",  :
  Cannot create a RasterLayer object from this file.
Calls: <Anonymous> -> <Anonymous> -> .local -> .rasterObjectFromFile
Execution halted

I can't reproduce this on my system - both Rscript calls work fine for me (R 3.2.3, 64-bit; Windows 8.1; raster 2.5-2) — jbaums
– jbaums, Commented Feb 19, 2016 at 23:51
I've gotten as far as figuring out that it's because Rscript doesn't load the methods package and raster:::.rasterFromGDAL (which is called by raster::raster in this case) needs methods::checkAtAssignment. BUT, not sure why it works elsewhere. Not in a position to immediately upgrade to 3.2.3 so I'm going to keep looking closer. — Jesse Anderson
– Jesse Anderson, Commented Feb 21, 2016 at 0:21

Robert Hijmans · Accepted Answer · 2016-02-21 06:08:45Z

1

Does the file exist in c:/ ? Can you do:

Rscript -e "file.exists('j.tif')"

I think you are right about Rscript not loading the methods package. But raster depends on it and loads it:

Rscript -e "library(raster); sessionInfo()"

#Loading required package: methods
#Loading required package: sp
#R Under development (unstable) (2016-01-09 r69890)
#Platform: x86_64-w64-mingw32/x64 (64-bit)
#Running under: Windows 7 x64 (build 7601) Service Pack 1

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

answered Feb 21, 2016 at 6:08

Robert Hijmans

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