Error in sp::CRS(SRS_string = prj$wkt) : no arguments in initialization list

[BFonteh]

I recently installed elevatr in my linux system and I encountered this error when I tried running the sample code in the example on get_elev_points() function in the documentation. What am I supposed to change?

[jhollist]

What do you get with the following?

sessionInfo()
rgdal::getPROJ4VersionInfo()
rgdal::getGDALVersionInfo()

Most likely you have older versions of the required libraries (GDAL and PROJ).

[BFonteh]

sessionInfo()
rgdal::getPROJ4VersionInfo()
rgdal::getGDALVersionInfo()

sessionInfo()
R version 3.6.2 (2019-12-12)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: AIMS Desktop 2018.1

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/lib/atlas-base/atlas/libblas.so.3.0
LAPACK: /usr/lib/atlas-base/atlas/liblapack.so.3.0

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

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

other attached packages:
[1] dplyr_1.0.2 rgdal_1.5-23 sp_1.4-5 elevatr_0.3.4

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] Rcpp_1.0.5 rstudioapi_0.13 magrittr_2.0.1 units_0.7-1
[5] tidyselect_1.1.0 lattice_0.20-44 R6_2.5.0 rlang_0.4.10
[9] tools_3.6.2 grid_3.6.2 KernSmooth_2.23-16 e1071_1.7-7
[13] DBI_1.1.0 ellipsis_0.3.1 class_7.3-15 tibble_3.0.4
[17] lifecycle_1.0.0 crayon_1.3.4 sf_0.9-8 purrr_0.3.4
[21] vctrs_0.3.6 glue_1.4.2 proxy_0.4-25 pillar_1.4.7
[25] compiler_3.6.2 generics_0.1.0 classInt_0.4-3 pkgconfig_2.0.3

rgdal::getPROJ4VersionInfo()
[1] "Rel. 4.9.3, 15 August 2016, [PJ_VERSION: 493]"
attr(,"short")
[1] 493

rgdal::getGDALVersionInfo()
[1] "GDAL 2.1.2, released 2016/10/24"
The above are the details of the results

[jhollist]

Your version of R, GDAL, and PROJ are all old. Elevatr will not run on version 3.6.2. The oldest that I regularly test on is 3.6.3.

If you can, the easiest solution would be to update R and re-install rgdal, sp, sf, raster, and elevatr. I think you would also need to manually update GDAL and PROJ. Windows and I think now Mac handle those updates, but since you are on Linux that still needs to happen manually, I believe.

I also noticed that you are using AIMS Desktop (Just checked it out. Looks like a nice project!) On their website they have a 2020 version available. That might also solve the issue for you.

Good luck!

[rsbivand]

@jhollist , sorry, you are missing the point, which is that on many legacy systems, old PROJ and GDAL run, because newer builds are not available. It isn't the R version, here it is the PROJ version, for which sp::CRS() cannot handle WKT as SRS_string=. I'm about to push a partial fix for the SRS_string="EPSG:XXXX" case, which fixes problems in MikkoVihtakari/ggOceanMaps#6, I think, but cannot fix yours, as you are passing a WKT string.

Most Centos clusters run old PROJ, I think this is the case here.

The key problem is that sp::CRS() will now return an NA CRS from things like CRS(SRS_string=ll_prj$wkt) , to which one cannot transform. Switching to say sf will not help, as the PROJ version remains the same, I think. Maybe consider using CRS(SRS_string=paste0("EPSG:", ll_prj$epsg)) and similar in the testthat spTransform() instances, which should work with both old and new PROJ, and thus also test cleanly on Solaris.

[rsbivand]

Modifications pushed to github.com:rsbivand/sp fixing the ggOceanMaps case, but your problem must be fixed in elevatr for older PROJ.

[jhollist]

@rsbivand Thanks for the clarification on this. All of the PROJ changes have clearly tied me in knots a bit.

I'll update my tests with your suggestion. Should be able to get to it sometime this week.

I appreciate you taking the time to push this fix (and for all you do for #rspatial)!

[jhollist]

Sorry for delay on getting to this, but I have the changes you suggest implemented in the tests . Working on getting a CRAN release ready. Hopefully by tomorrow...

[jhollist]

@rsbivand Updates just hit CRAN. I have an Red Hat machine with PROJ 4.8.0 on it. With the version of sp on https://github.com/rsbivand/sp I was able to test this new version without error. So, I think I got everything set. Thank you again for your help and patience!

[jhollist]

@Fonteh-Bonaventure can you confirm that the new version of elevatr on CRAN fixes the issue for you? I will wait a couple of weeks and if I don't hear otherwise will close this issue out.

[otsegun]

Hi @jhollist,
Thanks for your work on this package. Just want to add that I got this error and I was able to get it to work after installing the version of sp on https://github.com/rsbivand/sp like you mentioned above (I had sp version 1.4.5 from CRAN before). My current sessionInfo is:

R version 4.1.1 (2021-08-10)
Platform: x86_64-pc-linux-gnu (64-bit)
Running under: Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS

Matrix products: default
BLAS: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/openblas/libblas.so.3
LAPACK: /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libopenblasp-r0.2.20.so

locale:
[1] LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_NUMERIC=C LC_TIME=es_ES.UTF-8 LC_COLLATE=en_US.UTF-8 LC_MONETARY=es_ES.UTF-8
[6] LC_MESSAGES=en_US.UTF-8 LC_PAPER=es_ES.UTF-8 LC_NAME=C LC_ADDRESS=C LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=es_ES.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

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

other attached packages:
[1] elevatr_0.4.1 sp_1.4-6

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] Rcpp_1.0.7 pillar_1.6.4 compiler_4.1.1 progressr_0.9.0 prettyunits_1.1.1 progress_1.2.2 class_7.3-19
[8] viridis_0.6.2 tools_4.1.1 digest_0.6.28 dotCall64_1.0-1 lifecycle_1.0.1 tibble_3.1.5 gtable_0.3.0
[15] viridisLite_0.4.0 lattice_0.20-45 pkgconfig_2.0.3 rlang_0.4.12 DBI_1.1.1 curl_4.3.2 rgdal_1.5-27
[22] mvtnorm_1.1-3 spam_2.7-0 terra_1.4-11 gridExtra_2.3 e1071_1.7-9 raster_3.5-2 httr_1.4.2
[29] hms_1.1.1 vctrs_0.3.8 fields_13.3 maps_3.4.0 classInt_0.4-3 grid_4.1.1 glue_1.4.2
[36] sf_1.0-3 R6_2.5.1 fansi_0.5.0 foreign_0.8-81 ggplot2_3.3.5 purrr_0.3.4 magrittr_2.0.1
[43] codetools_0.2-18 units_0.7-2 scales_1.1.1 matrixStats_0.61.0 ellipsis_0.3.2 maptools_1.1-2 colorspace_2.0-2
[50] KernSmooth_2.23-20 utf8_1.2.2 proxy_0.4-26 munsell_0.5.0 crayon_1.4.2

Maybe this info might be useful for you.

[jhollist]

@otsegun Thank you! This is really helpful and I am happy to know that the fixes on GitHub appear to work.