[gdal-dev] With 1.6.2, still can't read ArcInfo binary grids: GDAL Error 3: Attempt to read past EOF in C:\Temp\GeoEcoTemp_Jason\tmpopx_s3\projected0a/../info/arc.dir.

[Jason Roberts]

Hi all,

 

I am using rgdal to read ArcInfo binary grids produced by ArcGIS. The latest
public version of rgdal, which binds with GDAL 1.6.1, fails with the error
message in the subject line of this email. I reported this a couple of weeks
ago in http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/gdal-dev/2009-July/021369.html.

 

Today, the rgdal developer (Roger Bivand) provided me with an rgdal built
against the 1.6.2 release candidate issued 31 July. The problem still
exists.

 

The problem had apparently been seen before. My original email prompted a
review of the issue, including mention of it being tracked in tickets #2447
and #3031. Evan made some checkins on 22 July that I thought would result in
this being fixed in both the trunk and the next release of 1.6 (which would
be 1.6.2). But I guess I did not fully understand it, and I missed the fact
that neither of these issues appeared in Howard's 31 July release candidate
email.

 

So: is there any chance the GDAL team can fix this in either 1.6.2 or, if it
is now too late, 1.6.3?

 

It may be that this fell off the radar because the severity of the tickets
(for example, #3031 is minor), or because there was a suggested workaround
that users could simply rename the "info" directory to prevent GDAL from
failing. Well the issue is indeed severe if you are an ArcGIS user. In my
case, the rasters were produced by ArcGIS 9.3.1. Presumably ESRI is
generating the rasters correctly. The workaround of renaming the info
directory is not a good idea. That renders all of the rasters in a directory
inaccessible to ArcGIS. It is a major corruption of the ArcInfo binary grid
format to do so. I'm not sure why it was suggested in the first place, but
it is a very bad idea.

 

I'm sorry for not staying on top of this issue and somehow missing that it
was not put into 1.6.2 and that the workaround is such as bad idea. In any
case, could you please consider fixing this in 1.6 soon? I can provide
example data if needed.

 

Thanks,

 

Jason

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