Dependency on retiring spatial infrastructure packages

[rsbivand]

You will be aware, for example from:
https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/04/12/evolution.html,
https://r-spatial.org/r/2022/12/14/evolution2.html,
https://r-spatial.org/r/2023/04/10/evolution3.html and
https://rsbivand.github.io/csds_jan23/bivand_csds_ssg_230117.pdf and
perhaps view https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlpjIqTPMCA&list=PLzREt6r1NenmWEidssmLm-VO_YmAh4pq9&index=1
that rgdal, rgeos and maptools will be retired this
year, in October 2023.

bdvis Imports rgdal, so in a scenario using sp evolution status 2 (substitute use of rgdal with sf for projection/transformation/CRS) and absence of retiring packages from the library path, it fails CMD check.

mapgrid uses rgdal::readOGR conditionally, so a very easy temporary fix would be to move rgdal to Suggests, and condition any use of non-NA shp on rgdal being present. Once rgdal has retired (October 2023), you will need to decide whether to drop reading geometry files, or rather change to sf::st_read() or terra::vect() and coerce to sp.

[rsbivand]

See also: https://r-spatial.org/r/2023/05/15/evolution4.html. Please take urgent action to remove rgdal totally.

[rsbivand]

Please submit to CRAN soon, only three months remain to update the package.

[rsbivand]

@vijaybarve Less than three weeks remain to fix this.

[rsbivand]

@vijaybarve R spatial infrastructure packages maptools, rgdal and rgeos will be archived by CRAN on Monday, October 16, 2023. Your package does not pass CMD check when these packages are not available. Expect your package to be archived by CRAN October 17-18 as CRAN checks feed through and your package fails, if not updated by Monday, October 16, 2023.

No grace period is anticipated, as you have had sufficient time to update your package to remove dependencies on maptools, rgdal and/or rgeos. It remains the case that many packages importing the raster package needlessly depend on retiring packages, as raster stopped using them a year ago.