initGRASS fails with "no stars SG yet" when SG is provided

[MiKatt]

Since recently, initGRASS always fails with an error "no stars SG yet" when I provide it with an SG for DEFAULT_WIND. The SG provided is a SpatialGridDataFrame and I run use_sp before.

I think I traced down the problem to this part of the code

mSG <- !missing(SG)
    if (mSG) {
      if (!inherits(SG, "Spatial")) 
        stop("SG is of class", class(SG), "not inheriting from Spatial")
      R_in_sp <- isTRUE(.get_R_interface() == "sp")
      if (is.null(.get_R_interface())) 
        stop("run use_sp() before this function if SG is not missing")
      else stop("no stars SG yet")
    }

The last stop is always executed if .get_R_interface() is not null. As far as I see in the history this part was also recently changed.

I am running R 4.0.3, rgrass7 v. 0.2.4 and GRASS 7.8.5 on Linux Mint 19.

[rsbivand]

Thanks, the testing I was doing was with a missing SG. I guess the expected usage would be to test against R_in_sp and stop if it is "sf", so I'll try that first. Could you please provide a test example?

[rsbivand]

Please check my edit to see whether it fixes the problem (by running use_sp() if it hasn't been run, or if use_sf() has been run - without reverting subsequently. Should be silent if use_sp() has been run.

[MiKatt]

Thanks a lot! It behaves now as you describe. Here a test example:

devtools::install_github("rsbivand/rgrass7", force = TRUE)
library(rgrass7)
grass_program_path <-  "/usr/lib/grass78/" 
dem_path <- system.file("extdata", "nc", "elev_ned_30m.tif", package = "openSTARS")
use_sp()
dem_grid <- rgdal::readGDAL(dem_path, silent = TRUE)
initGRASS(SG = dem_grid, mapset = "PERMANENT", gisBase = grass_program_path,
          remove_GISRC = TRUE,
          override = TRUE)

It runs silently with use_sp() and gives a warning without (Warning message: In initGRASS(SG = dem_grid, mapset = "PERMANENT", gisBase = grass_program_path, : use_sp() was set because SG was given).

[rsbivand]

Do you need a CRAN release soon, or is installing from github OK for now? The last CRAN submission was three weeks ago, so I'd prefer to wait for the next issues before releasing.

[MiKatt]

As initGRASS including SG is used within a function in the package openSTARS a quick CRAN release would be great. In the meantime, I will post a message to install rgrass7 from github when using openSTARS.

[rsbivand]

OK, I'll prepare a submission and explain why it is needed now.

[rsbivand]

Windows binary if needed on https://win-builder.r-project.org/DWxU2zQsKDLi/, starting submission.

[rsbivand]

"thanks, package rgrass7_0.2-5.tar.gz is on its way to CRAN."