[GRASS-stats] Error when starting grass from R (grass installed thru osgeo4w)

[Roger Bivand]

On Wed, 19 Sep 2018, Veronica Andreo wrote:

> Hello Roger,
>
> Thanks for coming back to this thread. The course, I'll teach starts on
> October 22. So, we have 4+ weeks :)

I could reproduce the problem after starting the OSGeo4W console from the 
desktop shortcut icon.

The problem seems to be that OSGeo4W's console starts in a directory for 
which the user does not have write access (for me from a desktop shortcut 
C:\Users\Public\Desktop\OSGeo4W). Because rgrass7::initGRASS() needs to 
write a GISRC file in the working directory, it needs write access. When I 
changed working directory to one to which I did have write access, the 
current CRAN binary rgrass7 loaded correctly under OSGeo4W for a 
throw-away location. I haven't yet tried with a pre-existing location.

Could you check and see whether this seems reasonable?

If so, I'll add a check for write access in the working directory to give 
a more sensible error message.

Best wishes,

Roger

>
> Let me know how I can help with testing.
> Thanks again
>
> Vero
>
> El mié., 19 sep. 2018 16:31, Roger Bivand <Roger.Bivand at nhh.no> escribió:
>
>> Sorry for the delay, now have access to an old laptop with Windows. When
>> do you need this resolved?
>>
>> Roger
>>
>> Roger Bivand
>> Norwegian School of Economics
>> Bergen, Norway
>>
>>
>>
>> Fra: Veronica Andreo
>> Sendt: mandag 17. september, 02.20
>> Emne: Re: [GRASS-stats] Error when starting grass from R (grass installed
>> thru osgeo4w)
>> Til: Helmut Kudrnovsky
>> Kopi: grass-stats at lists.osgeo.org
>>
>>
>> Hi again,
>>
>> So, I tested as suggested:
>> 1. Open R console within OSGeo4W Shell,
>> 2. library(rgrass7)
>> 3. initGRASS(gisBase = 'C:/OSGeo4W64/apps/grass/grass-7.4.0', gisDbase =
>> 'C:/Users/RETA/Documents/grassdata', location = 'nc_spm_08_grass7', mapset
>> = 'user1', SG='elevation')
>>
>> and I now get:
>> unused argument (gisDbase = 'C:/Users/RETA/Documents/grassdata')
>>
>> anything else to test/set?
>>
>> best,
>> Vero
>>
>>
>> El dom., 16 sept. 2018 a las 23:15, Helmut Kudrnovsky (<hellik at web.de>)
>> escribió:
>>
>>> OK, thanks for confirming that OSGeo4W remains feasible for rgrass7; I
>> don't
>> have access. Does usability >include initGRASS()? This would be most
>> fragile
>> because environment variables are being set, and >condition on Windows and
>> OSGeo4W.
>>
>> R within a GRASS session works quite well so far.
>>
>> did a fresh svn up of
>>
>> svn://r-forge.r-project.org/svnroot/spgrass
>>
>> and quickly screened pkg\rgrass7\R\initGRASS.R:
>>
>> e.g.
>>
>>         Sys.setenv(GRASS_PROJSHARE=paste(Sys.getenv("GISBASE"),
>>             "\\proj", sep=""))
>>
>> AFAIK at least the GRASS7.4.x line doesn't use anymore an own copy of the
>> PROJSHARE files; instead it uses the PROJ files itself; that's for all
>> platforms (linux, MacOS, MS Windows, ...).
>>
>> e.g. in OSGeo4W 64bit it's defined as:
>>
>> SET OSGEO4W_ROOT=C:\OSGeo4W64
>> set GRASS_PROJSHARE=%OSGEO4W_ROOT%\share\proj
>>
>> only in the standalone installer, it's still defined as:
>>
>> set GRASS_PROJSHARE=%GISBASE%\share\proj
>>
>> because it's bundled in the installer.
>>
>> e.g.
>>
>>             Sys.setenv(PATH=paste(Sys.getenv("GISBASE"), "\\extrabin;",
>>                 Sys.getenv("PATH"), sep=""))
>>
>> there is no C:\OSGeo4W64\apps\grass\grass-7.4.1, because all of the
>> dependencies etc are living e.g. in
>> C:\OSGeo4W64\bin, C:\OSGeo4W64\lib, ...
>>
>> I'm not sure about this one:
>>
>> [...]
>>         Sys.setenv(GISBASE=gisBase)
>>         if (missing(home)) home <- Sys.getenv("USERPROFILE")
>> [...]
>>         Sys.setenv(GISRC=paste(Sys.getenv("HOME"), "\\.grassrc7", sep=""))
>>
>> in winGRASS (standalone, OSGeo4W), the rc file lives in
>> C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Roaming\GRASS7 and not in %USERPROFILE%
>>
>> and it seems around these lines:
>>
>> [...]
>>         Sys.setenv(GISRC="junk")
>>         cat("GISDBASE:", getwd(), "\n", file=Sys.getenv("GISRC"))
>>         cat("LOCATION_NAME: <UNKNOWN>", "\n", file=Sys.getenv("GISRC"),
>>             append=TRUE)
>>         cat("MAPSET: <UNKNOWN>", "\n", file=Sys.getenv("GISRC"),
>>             append=TRUE)
>>         gisrc <- ifelse (use_g.dirseps.exe, system(paste("g.dirseps.exe
>> -g",
>>             shQuote(Sys.getenv("GISRC"))), intern=TRUE),
>>             Sys.getenv("GISRC"))
>> [...]
>>
>> initGRASS gets in trouble in OSGeo4W.
>>
>>
>>
>> -----
>> best regards
>> Helmut
>> --
>> Sent from: http://osgeo-org.1560.x6.nabble.com/Grass-Stats-f4049448.html
>> _______________________________________________
>> grass-stats mailing list
>> grass-stats at lists.osgeo.org
>> https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/grass-stats
>>
>>
>>
>>
>

-- 
Roger Bivand
Department of Economics, Norwegian School of Economics,
Helleveien 30, N-5045 Bergen, Norway.
voice: +47 55 95 93 55; e-mail: Roger.Bivand at nhh.no
http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2392-6140
https://scholar.google.no/citations?user=AWeghB0AAAAJ&hl=en