NEWS in package ‘sf’

---

Changes in version 1.0-19

• fix type checks in C++ GDAL area and length computation functions, anticipating GDAL 3.10.0; #2466, #2468, #2469 by @rsbivand and @rouault

• improve test on empty geometries, which changed in 1.0-18; #2463

• gdal_utils() ogrinfo has an argument read_only which, when TRUE (or options includes "-ro"), opens a datasource in read-only mode (#2460; sf did this before 1.0-17); by default a datasource is opened in update (read-write) mode (since sf 1.0-17; #2420)

• the sf -> ppp conversion as.ppp.sf() accepts a data.frame of marks instead of just 1 column #2450, by @agila5

• add flag for preservation of point order in st_voronoi #1371 for GEOS >= 3.12

Changes in version 1.0-18

• support POLYGON FULL simple feature geometry, representing the entire Earth surface, as used by s2geometry; see also https://r-spatial.org/r/2024/10/11/polygonfull.html for a longer introduction; #2441

• st_sfc() has an argument oriented which, when set to TRUE, adds an attribute oriented=TRUE to an sfc object, indicating that this object should not be reoriented in conversion to s2_geography (avoiding using the global option s2_oriented); st_as_sfc.bbox() sets this to TRUE; #2441

• fix build failure with GDAL < 3.4.0 #2436

• st_simplify() now accepts feature-wise tolerance values when s2 is switched on #2442

Changes in version 1.0-17

• add st_transform() method for bbox objects; this uses OGRCoordinateTransformation::TransformBounds(), densifying first and antemeridian proof; #2415

• st_filter.sf() correctly scopes x and y arguments using !! operator; #2416

• [.sfc and [<-.sfc use matrix/array type subsetting for sfc objects that have a dim attribute

• add st_exterior_ring() to extract exterior rings (remove holes); #2406

• add text.sf(), text.sfc(), points.sf(), points.sfc() to annotate base plots at geometry centroids; #2399

• st_sf() no longer strips tbl or tbl_df class labels; #2378

• st_layers() returns an object of class c("sf_layers", "data.frame"), with a dedicated print method.

• when dim is not XYZM, sf_as_sf.data.frame() interprets a length 4 coords argument to specify the corners of a rectangular polygon; #2357

• st_interpolate_aw() gains an na.rm argument, for removing features with NA attributes before interpolating; #830

• merge.sf() no longer renames geometry column; #2334

Changes in version 1.0-16

• st_join() no longer renames the geometry column; #2327

• st_sample() works when unprojected polygon geometry crosses the antemeridian; #2331

• clean up and modernization of S3 registration of methods and tests; #2285, #2288, #2316, #2341, #2342, by @olivroy

• [.sfc works when setting argument op; #2320

• st_sample() for polygons is sensitive to setting oriented = TRUE to prevent wrongly correcting ring directions; #2308

• add support for the GDAL footprint utility (requiring GDAL >= 3.8.0) to gdal_utils; #2305, by @goergen95

• existing environment variables PROJ_LIB and PROJ_DATA are (again) ignored on sf binary CRAN installations (win + macos), effectively by overwriting them during the R session and restoring them on exit; this does not happen if environment variable R_SF_USE_PROJ_DATA is set to true. #2298

• add st_line_project() to find how far a point is when projected on a line; #2291

• add st_line_interpolate() to obtain a point at a certain distance along a line; #2291

Changes in version 1.0-15

• add st_perimeter() generic to cover both geographic and projected coordinates; #268, #2279, by @JosiahParry

• add st_sample() method for bbox, with special provisions for ellipsoidal coordinates; #2283

• documentation clean-up by @olivroy; #2266, #2285

• st_convex_hull() uses s2::s2_convex_hull() for geodetic coordinates; #2250

• add directed argument to st_line_merge(); #2264

• st_union.sfc() given x and y works consistently across geodetic and projected objects; #2262

• st_union.sf() given x and y unions pairwise if by_feature = TRUE; #2259

• st_read() work around issue with GPKG driver if wkt_filter is set; #2248

• st_read() uses GDAL's stream reading when use_stream = TRUE; #2238 by @paleolimbot

• st_transform() responds to in-session changes to sf_proj_network(); #2166

• plot.sf(): key.width is sensitive to pointsize graphics parameter par("ps"); keys with factor levels suggest a proper size if they won't fit.

• plot.sf(): key.pos can hold a second value in [0, 1] determining the relative position of the key in the available space

• [<-.sf fixes the agr attribute when it is broken; #2211

• if the env. variable ADD_SF_NAMESPACE is set to true, sf objects get a new attribute, .sf_namespace, which forces loading the sf namespace when it has not been loaded so far, e.g. for proper printing or plotting of an sf object; #2212 by Mike Mahoney

• distinct.sf() is type-safe for sf objects with zero rows; #2204

• summarise.sf() raises an error if .by is given but no across() on the geometry; #2207

• st_write() matches fields on name first, than on position; this matters for formats that have pre-defined names, such as GPX; #2202

Changes in version 1.0-14

• fix plot.sf() when using a key for multiple factor variables; #2196, #2195

• fix use of as.numeric_version in a test, for upcoming change in r-devel

• code tidy-ing: fix many lintr suggestions, thanks to Michael Chirico (#2181 - #2191)

Changes in version 1.0-13

• gdal_utils() adds "ogrinfo" utility (requires GDAL >= 3.7.0); #2160

• st_as_sf() catches errors when setting invalid crs values, raised by Jon Skøien

• add rename_with.sf() method; #1472

• use GEOS' overlayNG routines for (GEOS) Intersection, Difference, Union and SymDifference; #2143

• added duplicated.sf(); #2138, #2140, thanks to @bart1

• select.sf() allows selecting the same column twice under different names; #1886

• st_as_sf.ppplist() is deprecated; #1926

• st_cast() handles empty geometries; #1961

• don't repeat longlat messages in summarise.sf(); #1519

• fix random sampling on the sphere; #2133

Changes in version 1.0-12

• update NAMESPACE to useDynLib(sf, .registration=TRUE); #2127 thanks to @eddelbuettel

• fix call in gdal_addo(); #2124

• fix issues that came up with older GDAL version, use GDAL_VERSION_NUM consistently; #2123 #2121 #2119

Changes in version 1.0-11

• st_make_grid() also accepts area units for cellsize, for square and hexagonal grids; #1505

• add st_concave_hull(), for concave hulls, if GEOS >= 3.11.0; #1964

• add st_triangulate_constrained(), for constrained Delaunay triangulation, if GEOS >= 3.10.0; #1964

• clean up the retrieval of length or angle units from WKT representations; https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/gdal-dev/2023-March/056994.html

• conversion to GEOS uses the GEOS_PREC_VALID_OUTPUT flag, which makes sure that the "[o]utput is always valid. Collapsed geometry elements (including both polygons and lines) are removed."

Changes in version 1.0-10

• gdal_utils() has a config_options argument to set further GDAL options, just like st_write(); #2003

• fix slow writing of logical vectors in st_write(); #1409; #1689

• st_drivers() has an argument regex to filter on driver (long) name; #2090

• drop C++11 as a system requirement

• c.sfc() (and, consequently, dplyr::bind_rows()) gives an error if components have different CRS; #1884

• data imported from maps are associated with the Clark 1866 ellipsoid; #2080

• fix importing legacy SpatialPolygon objects without comments; #2063, #2069, https://github.com/rstudio/leaflet/issues/833

• st_read() no longer errors on mixes of XY and XYZ geometries; #2046 #1592

• in plot.sf(), when numeric breaks are given a legend key is always plotted; #2065

• st_crs()$axes returns a data.frame with axes properties (name, orientation, conversion factor) when GDAL >= 3.0.0

• clean up unit handling for geometry measures (length, area, distance) and crs;

• st_crs(x)$ud_unit returns NULL if units are unknown; #2049

• st_write() substitutes an NA crs with ENGCRS["Undefined Cartesian SRS with unknown unit"]; #2049, #2054

• st_can_transform() checks whether a transformation between two crs exists; see https://github.com/dieghernan/tidyterra/issues/64; #2049

• the matrix returned by st_coordinates() has no row names, to reduce output size

Changes in version 1.0-9

• adjust for changes how R-devel handles POSIXlt; #2028

• add st_break_antimeridian(); #1983, #1991 by Roger Bivand

• add Fibonacci as a spatial sampling type in st_sample()

• use the global options("sf_use_s2") to determine whether to use s2, rather than a value in a local environment; #1977

• fix utils mdiminfo and mdimtranslate in gdal_utils()

• extend arguments of gdal_read_mdim() needed by stars::read_mdim() if stars >= 0.5-7; add gdal_write_mdim()

• add drop_na() method for sf objects; #1975

Changes in version 1.0-8

• st_drop_geometry.default() returns x unmodified;

• sf_project() accepts 3- or 4-column matrices, containing z and t values;

• optimization for st_sfc() by @paleolimbot; #1938, #1925

• [<-.sfc() recomputes the bounding box; st_sfc() gets parameter compute_bbox; #1965

• add new algorithm and drop option to st_make_valid() when using GEOS and GEOS >= 3.10.1; #1655

• add st_minimum_rotated_rectangle(), available when GEOS >= 3.9.0; #1953

• fix st_sample() with type = "hexagonal" for corner case (n=1), add a progress argument for a progress bar; #1945

• add package pbapply to Suggests; #1945

• add pdf driver to windows build; #1942

• clarify pipeline argument in st_transform() when axis order is ambiguous; #1934

• handle argument xpd in calls to plot.sfc_POLYGON() and plot.sfc_MULTIPOLYGON()

• add pivot_wider() method, by Henning Teickner; #1915

• add gdal_addo() to add or remove overviews from raster images; #1921

• st_layers() returns crs of each layer in a crs list of crs objects

• restore st_graticule() behaviour to pre-sf 1.0-0; https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues/4571

• gdal_metadata() sets metadata item names properly

• st_read() gains an argument optional passed on to as.data.frame to avoid changing column names; #1916

• GPX files are autodetected by st_read(); #1917

• unnecessary coordinate names are not returned in st_sample(), making the output size smaller; #1879

Changes in version 1.0-7

• st_drop_geometry() is a generic; #1914

• st_crs(x)$ud_unit returns the unit of the coordinate reference system of x

• geometric predicates return sgbp objects omitting self-intersections etc. by passing remove_self = TRUE and unique symmetric relationship by passing retain_unique = TRUE (to ... if needed); this simplifies identifying (and removing) duplicated geometries; duplicates are identified by e.g. by st_equals(x, retain_unique = TRUE) |> unlist() |> unique(); #1893

• fix compile issue against GDAL < 2.5.0 introduced in 1.0-6; #1899

Changes in version 1.0-6

• adapt to new spatstat.random package; #1892

• st_geometry<-() also allows to rename a geometry column in an sf object; #1890

• for sf objects, the st_as_sfc() method is an alias for st_geometry(); #1882

• st_make_grid() speeded up; #1579 thanks to Krzysztof Dyba

• remove direct and indirect dependencies on rgeos and rgdal; #1869

• use stats::dist rather than GEOS for symmetric point-point Euclidian distance computation; #1874

Changes in version 1.0-5

• package startup message reports status of sf_use_s2(); #1782

• sf_use_s2() uses message() to report a change; #1782

• st_sample() using regular sampling for ellipsoidal coordinates "works" as if coordinates were Cartesian; #1837

Changes in version 1.0-4

• new function st_delete() deletes a data source, or layer(s) within a data source; #1828

• fix memory leak in WKT1_ESRI retrieval; #1690

Changes in version 1.0-3

• cope with how GEOS >= 3.10.0 handles illegal geometries (e.g., non-closed rings); #1807

• crs objects have a $srid method to extract the SRID (as authority "name:code"); #1804

• st_as_grob() methods for sfc_* objects correctly handle empty geometries; #1789 with help from Hiroaki Yutani

• when writing objects with NA as CRS to GeoPackage, assign "Unknown Cartesian CRS" first - this is in line with using Cartesian geometry operations for objects with NA as CRS; #1776

• add coerce method from sgbp to sparseMatrix; #1750

• fix st_cast() for GEOMETRYCOLLECTIONS containing empty geometries; #1767

• fix st_is_valid() for bogus polygons and projected coordinates; #1666, #1760; #1761

Changes in version 1.0-2

• st_read() and st_write() using GDAL handle binary attributes (OFTBinary fields) ; #1721

• a pivot_longer method is added for sf objects (the data.frame method works, but raises a warning)

• rbind.sf preserves primary geometry column; #1717

• configure constrains using --static to Darwin platform; #1702, #1712, #1713

• old-style crs objects created with sf < 0.9-0 generate a message, and will cause a warning in the future.

• when st_crs() is called with a WKT2 as text input, its input field will be replaced with the CRS name (if it has one).

• GEOS (>= 3.9.0) operations use GEOSGeom_setPrecision_r to set precision of geometries; #1535

• st_read() with specified query ignores argument layers, and warns if it is given; #1444

Changes in version 1.0-1

• fix regression in st_intersection(): when using s2 attributes were assigned wrongly; #1704

• crs (sf) to CRS (sp) conversion no longer needs validation by rgdal; https://github.com/edzer/sp/issues/107

• retrieve ESRI's WKT version of CRS by st_crs(id)$WKT1_ESRI; #1690

Changes in version 1.0-0

• add s2 to Imports:

• add Dewey Dunnington to contributors

• sf_use_s2() prints a message when using s2 has been switched to on or off.

• use s2 spherical geometry as default when coordinates are ellipsoidal. This can be switched off (defaulting to planar geometry, using GEOS, as in sf < 1.0-0) by setting environment variable _SF_USE_S2 to false before package sf is loaded, or by sf_use_s2(FALSE); #1649

• st_nearest_feature() with missing y returns nearest features in the remaining set of x; https://github.com/r-spatial/s2/issues/111

• st_write() gains an argument config_options to set GDAL config options; #1618

• fix regression in sf_project(..., keep = TRUE); #1635

Changes in version 0.9-8

• add st_as_sf() method for terra's SpatVector class; #1567

• distinct.sf() works by default on all variables, and keeps active geometry active; #1613

• improve (fix?) polygonize/contour code; #1608

• sf_proj_network() reports whether PROJ uses network (CDN) grids, can switch it on or off, and can set the CDN url.

• st_write() returns obj, invisibly; #1597

• fix regression in n-ary st_intersection(), #1595, introduced at #1549

• st_inscribed_circle() computes the maximum inscribed circle for polygons (requires GEOS >= 3.9.0)

• allow to st_cast() from COMPOUNDCURVE, MULTISURFACE or CURVEPOLYGON to GEOMETRYCOLLECTION, and back; #1573

• Fixed a bug in st_as_grob() when plotting a mix of MULTI and non-MULTI geometries of the same base type

Changes in version 0.9-7

• n-ary st_intersection() skips failing geometries, rather than returning an error; #1549

• use s2_centroid() for geographical coordinates if sf_use_s2() is TRUE.

• st_as_text() method for crs objects can return projjson (if GDAL >= 3.1.0 and PROJ > 6.2.0)

• st_transform() no longer warns on conversions like "+proj=ob_tran +o_proj=longlat +o_lat_p=45 +o_lon_p=30"

• st_as_wkb() takes srid from wkt field of crs when input field doesn't contain it; #1490

• plot.sf() adds key.pos=0 option to run the logic behind the key without plotting it; #1487

• fix bug in select.sf() when selected variables were renamed; #1483

• st_as_sf.stars(..., merge = TRUE) now works if CRS is NA; #1389

• add (dynamically loaded) as_wkb() methods for sf, sfc and sfg, making st_as_s2() unnecessary

• st_as_s2() transforms non-longlat objects to EPSG:4326 first

Changes in version 0.9-6

• gdal_utils() print (GDAL-style) progress bar if quiet = FALSE (except for info and mdiminfo)

• fix CPL_gdal_warper for multi bands; https://github.com/r-spatial/stars/issues/320

• sf_proj_search_paths() retrieves and sets the proj search path (if GDAL > 3.0.3)

• when loading sf, sf_use_s2() is set to FALSE unless environment variable _SF_USE_S2 equals true (this changes to TRUE in sf 1.0-0)

• resolve GDAL/PROJ version vulnerabilities in CRS-crs conversion; #1479

• st_sample() gains an argument, by_polygon, to more clevery sample MULTIPOLYGON geometries; #1480

• st_sample() accepts non-integer sample sizes, with a (suppressable) warning and handles values of sizes that would round to zero; #1480

• gdal_utils() adds utils mdiminfo and mdimtranslate (requires GDAL >= 3.1)

• st_union() gains an argument is_coverage, which, when set to TRUE, leads to much faster unioning in case features form a coverage (polygons don't overlap); #1462 by Don Baston

• fix gdal_utils("translate") locking input file; #1452

• st_make_grid() no longer selects cells intersecting with x; #1447

• use s2::s2_dwithin_matrix() in st_is_within_distance(); #1367

Changes in version 0.9-5

• Only when package s2 >= 1.0.1 is available: support for spherical geometry operators (predicates, transformers, measures, nearest point/feature) for geographic coordinates in package s2 is now by default switched off, and can be switched on by sf_use_s2(TRUE); see https://www.r-spatial.org/r/2020/06/17/s2.html and vignette sf7. It is planned to be switched on by default in sf 1.0-0.

• drop Z and/or M coordinate in st_as_s2(), with message

• geometry predicates and transformers gain an ... argument to pass s2::s2_options()

• dplyr::select() now ensures the geometry column sticks to the back rather than the front of the data frame; #1425

• dplyr::rename() now preserves the active geometry column even when it is renamed; #1431

• proj units query adjusted to PROJ 7.1.0 release; #1434

Changes in version 0.9-4

• empty geom generators take care of XYZ etc dim; #1400

• write_sf() and read_sf() no longer warn when reading tables without geometries

• st_write() writes non-spatial tables when given a plain data.frame or tbl_df; #1345

• the default for stringsAsFactors in st_read and st_sf is FALSE for R version >= 4.1.0

• the sf method for dplyr::select() supports renaming the geometry column; #1415

Changes in version 0.9-3

• st_is_valid() is a generic

• Windows CRAN binaries use GDAL 3.0.4, PROJ 6.3.1 and GEOS 3.8.0, thanks to Jeroen Ooms' rwinlib work; #1275

• plot.sf() gains an extent argument to set the extent (xlim, ylim) of the plot; extent must be an object with an st_bbox() method, such as an sf or a stars object; #1193

Changes in version 0.9-2

• st_axis_order(TRUE) gives and error if GDAL has version < 2.5.0

• loading PROJ units link, us_in, ind_yd, ind_ft, and ind_ch into the udunits database is no longer done at package load time, but when function sf_add_proj_units() is called.

• fix line sampling for small densities; #1365

• sf_project() handles crs objects when PROJ version is below 6 using proj.4 string representations.

• avoid using isFALSE in st_write(); #1342

• fix regression in gdal_utils("translate", ...); #1339

Changes in version 0.9-1

• fix an invalid read bug in st_m_range(); #1332

• st_crs(4326) == st_crs("+proj=longlat +ellps=WGS84 +datum=WGS84 +no_defs") returns TRUE for GDAL >= 3.0, irrespective authority compliance of axis order; see #1331 and https://github.com/ropensci/scrubr/issues/34

• sf_project() has a parameter authority_compliant to return coordinates in "visualisation order"; when TRUE it returns coordinates in authority compliant axis order (e.g. EPSG:4326 latitude longitude); default is st_axis_order().

• fix test for Solaris and certain GDAL/PROJ versions

• fix error reading category table through GDAL; https://github.com/r-spatial/stars/issues/245

Changes in version 0.9-0

• see r-spatial blog post: https://www.r-spatial.org/r/2020/03/17/wkt.html

• modify crs objects to reflect our post-proj4string world (#1146; #1225): crs objects contain two fields, input with the user input (if any), and wkt with a well-known-text (or WKT2) representation of the coordinate reference system. crs objects have a $ method to dynamically retrieve the epsg (integer) or proj4string representation, using e.g. x$epsg.

• support for PostGIS 3 using WKT and the new-style crs objects; #1234, #1303, #1308 by @etiennebr

• st_write_db() and st_read_db() are defunct. Use st_write and st_read instead.

• st_write() uses append, replacing (and deprecating) argument update; st_write fails when a layer already exists and append has not been set explicitly to TRUE (append) or FALSE (overwrite); #1266

• st_proj_info() was renamed into sf_proj_info; sf_proj_info can get and set the PROJ data search path and use of CDN; #1277

• adapt to new dplyr version; https://github.com/tidyverse/dplyr/issues/4917

• st_sample() is a generic

• write stars rasters with wkt info, rather than proj4strings

• when GEOS >= 3.8.0, st_make_valid is provided by sf rather than by lwgeom #989

• allow for single-sided buffers for linear geometries; #1001

• add st_reverse() methods to reverse points in a linestring (requires GEOS >= 3.7.0); #1246

• st_make_grid() returns grid cells or points that intersect with the target geometry, not its bounding box; #1260

• allow for PROJ >= 7; #1254

• st_geometry_type() accepts by_geometry argument; #1264

Changes in version 0.8-1

• st_as_sf.map() no longer requires maptools and sp; dropped dependency on maptools.

• work around a bug in 6.0.0 <= PROJ < 6.3.1: replace +init=epsg:XXXX ... strings with the XXXX EPSG integer, to work around a bug in PROJ; see https://github.com/OSGeo/PROJ/pull/1875 and links therein. If ... arguments are present, raise a warning that these are ignored.

• st_as_sf.map() no longer requires maptools and sp; drop dependency on maptools.

• conversion between spatstat classes owin, ppp and psp and sf classes no longer use maptools; #1204

• gdal_utils() processes open options -oo and -doo properly; https://github.com/ITSLeeds/geofabric/issues/12

• st_sample() directly interfaces spatstat sampling methods, e.g. type = "Thomas" calls spatstat::rThomas after converting input arguments (window) and converts returned ppp object to sf's POINT geometries; #1204 with help from Ege Rubak and Jakub Nowosad

• sf_project() gains an option keep = TRUE to return Inf values for points not projectable; #1228

• support vctrs methods for geometry list columns; this makes unnest work again (#1172); #1196 by Lionel Henry

• st_as_sf.pq_geometry() converts binary geom columns from RPostgres::dbGetQuery; #1195

• st_cast() can convert MULTICURVE to MULTILINESTRING; #1194

• st_read() gains a parameter wkt_filter for spatially filtering the features to be read; #1192

• st_area() and st_length() handle +to_meter argument in PROJ strings; #1170

• add st_filter() generic for filtering on spatial features only; #1148

• a new UBSAN error in wkb_read() was resolved; #1154, #1152

• new method st_shift_longitude() to re-center data for a Pacific view. #1218

• output of st_as_text() with MULTIPOINT has nested parentheses around points. E.g., MULTIPOINT ((0 0), (1 1)) instead of MULTIPOINT (0 0, 1 1); #1219, #1221

Changes in version 0.8-0

• fix tests for PROJ 6.2.0 not accepting +units=

• fixes for tidyr 1.0-0 release; attempt to port nest.sf() and unnest.sf(); #1068, #1145

• gdal_utils() better closes connections after use; #1143

• st_write() gains a drivers options, to limit the drivers attempted; #1142

• rather than replacing, st_write() and write_sf() append to an existing layer if update=TRUE; #1126

• improve plotting of POSIXct and Date attributes (Date requiring classInt >= 0.4-2)

• NULL geometries read by GDAL are returned as empty geometries; #1119

• gdal_utils('rasterize', ...) accepts non-existing destinations, defined by e.g. resolution and extent options (see #1116 for an example), and overwrites if needed (see #1136 for an example)

• add Dan Baston as contributor; #1120 and many others

• in addition to NULL, st_sfc() also converts NA values into empty geometries; #1114.

• st_join() is a generic

Changes in version 0.7-7

• plot() handles POSIXct values in legend

• constructor functions like st_linestring() check and break on NA coordinates; #1101, #1102

Changes in version 0.7-6

• have examples of st_write write only to the temporary R session directory

Changes in version 0.7-5

• as(x, "Spatial") gives a proper error message on empty geometries; #1093

• st_cast() takes care of empty polygons; #1094

• st_nearest_* functions warn in case they are used with geographic coordinates; #1081

• st_union() no longer segfaults on zero row sf objects; #1077

• st_transform() no longer breaks on zero row sf objects; #1075

• when PROJ >= 6.1.0 is available and sf comes with datum files (as is the case with statically linked Windows and OSX CRAN binaries), PROJ_LIB is no longer temporarily overwritten, but the PROJ C api is used to set the datum path; #1074, suggested by Jeroen Ooms

• sf compiles against GDAL 3.x and PROJ 6.1.0, using the new proj.h interface; #1070

• st_distance() returns NA for empty geometries, rather than 0; #1055

Changes in version 0.7-4

• add example on how voronoi polygons can be tied back to the points they contain; #1030

• st_difference(x, y), with x an sfc with zero feature geometries, returns x; #1024

• don't reset (base) plot device when add = TRUE

• == and != return NA when one of the operands is an empty geometry; #1013

• st_intersects() is a generic

• drop requiring proj_api.h in favor of proj.h, this enables compatibility to PROJ 6.0.0 and GDAL 2.5.0-dev; #988

• fix regression in binary predicates introduced in #855; #999 reported by Barry Rowlingson

• fix bug in gdal_utils util warper on certain GDAL/OS combinations; https://github.com/r-spatial/stars/issues/117

• c.sfc() ignores the type (class) of empty sfc objects when choosing the result type; #985, #982

• rename the default value for distance to "Euclidean", rather than "distance" in st_distance()

Changes in version 0.7-3

• add argument exact to st_sample(), defaulting to FALSE; #896

• fixed n-ary st_difference() for cases where geometries are entirely contained in others; #975, by Jonathan Marshall

• faster Ops.sfc(), added st_normalize(); #973 by Thomas Lin Pedersen

• new grob constructor for sfc objects; #971 by Thomas Lin Pedersen; add Thomas as contributor

• add group_split() and group_map() methods for sf objects (experimental); #969

• make st_interpolate_aw() a generic;

• argument col for plot of GEOMETRY sfc's is NA (open) for (multi) polygon geometries

Changes in version 0.7-2

• feature IDs are no longer returned as names on the geometry list column, but optionally returned by st_read as attribute column; #812

• when plotting multiple attributes, plot.sf adds a (single, common) key if key.pos is set

• precision can be specified in distance units; #901

• support log-scale in color legend by setting logz to TRUE in plot.sf

• st_intersects() etc. will prepare y when y is polygons and x is points; #885 by Dan Baston

• st_write() (and write_sf()) returns its first argument, invisibly; #889

Changes in version 0.7-1

• fix bug that broke n-ary st_intersection() on platforms using clang; #867

Changes in version 0.7-0

• adds several interfaces to GDAL functions, meant to be used by package stars

• st_read() receives a query argument that can run queries against OGR datasets; #834, by Barry Rowlingson and Michael Sumner

• read_sf() no longer first creates tibbles from data.frames, but creates them directly; #853, db propagation by Etienne Racine

• check difference between compile-time and run-time GEOS versions; #844

• all GEOS routines are (more) robust against memory leaks, by using unique pointers; #822, #845, by Dan Baston

• st_buffer() receives the buffer styles endCapStyle, joinStyle and mitreLimit; #833, #842 by Michael Sumner

Changes in version 0.6-4

• st_area() is a generic; https://github.com/r-spatial/stars/issues/32

• st_write() resolves ~ correctly; #456

• read and write feature IDs as sfc list column names; #812

• st_centroid() works for empty geometries, returning an empty point #769

• add st_nearest_points(), to obtain the (LINESTRING connecting the) two nearest points for pairs of geometries; #788

• add hexagonal tiling to st_make_grid()

• add regular and hexagonal sampling to st_sample()

• fixes for PROJ 5.0.1; #545

• fixes for GDAL 2.3.0; #759

• st_sample() supports regular sampling of LINESTRING; #725 by @statnmap

• Support reading and writing of database Pool objects; #756

• fix plotting of sf objects without attributes; #755

• add reference to the R Journal article in CITATION

Changes in version 0.6-3

• move dependency RPostgreSQL from Imports: back to Suggests:

• st_centroid.sf() and st_point_on_surface.sf also warn if attributes are not constant over geometries.

• summarise() allows the user to define geometries for summaries; #714, by Kirill Mueller

• plot.sf() emits a warning if col does not have length 1 or nrow(x), and requires pal (rather than col) to set a palette for factors.

• plot.sf() provides control over legend keys using key.length and key.width, decrease default key length; #731

• sgbp objects receive an as.data.frame method; #715

Changes in version 0.6-2

• GDAL read/write supports logical variables; #722

• add st_crop() to simplify cropping objects with a rectangular area; #720

• fix bug in [<- when columns are added to an sf object; #718

• use dynamic registration of S3 methods, similar to how hms does this; #710 by Kirill Mueller

• (partially) address writing GPKG to network drive, writing to temp file first; #628

• add Kirill Mueller as contributor

• st_make_grid() is faster; #708, by Dan Baston

• st_read() and st_write() are generic, with methods for directly reading from and writing to database connections; st_read_db and st_write_db are deprecated; #558, thanks to Etienne Racine @etiennebr

• Package RPostgreSQL moved from Suggests to Imports

• restore compatibility with GDAL 2.0.x versions (which won't have gdal_utils); #686

• read_sf() can also read tables without geometry; #684, by Andy Teucher

Changes in version 0.6-1

• method distinct() works; #669, #672

• +, -, * and / for pairs of geometries (sfg, sfc) return geometric union, difference, intersection and symmetric difference, respectively.

• st_cast() from MULTIPOLYGON to MULTILINESTRING should work properly; #660

• all Rcpp interfaces needed by package stars have been moved into sf; pkg stars is R-only, and only sf needs linking to GDAL.

• gdal_utils() interfaces the 9 gdal utils using the C++ API

• improve resetting (base) plots; add reset = FALSE in a call to plot to enable adding to plots that have a legend

• st_read() returns a data.frame when a table contains no geometries, rather than giving an error; it does emit a warning in this case. See https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-sig-geo/2018-February/026344.html

• move pillar from Imports: to Suggests:

• update to the new rwinlib distribution of gdal (adds JPG2000); #639

• speed up computation of centroids for largest polygon; #623

• add st_as_sfc.raw method

• Bugfix: binary operations (st_intersection, st_difference, etc) no longer fail when operating on data frames of class "tbl_df" with common column names; #644

Changes in version 0.6-0

• add pillar to Imports: to provide method for printing WKT geometries in tibbles

• st_as_text, and subsequently format and print, use argument digits (or options(digits = n)) to control the number of digits used for printing coordinates; default is options("digits"), which is typically 7.

• st_is_within_distance works with geographic coordinates

• st_cast from MULTIPOLYGON to MULTILINESTRING no longer changes the number of features/feature geometries, but conversion from MULTIPOLYGON to LINESTRING (typically) does; #596

• st_distance for long/lat geographic coordinates uses lwgeom, accepting all geometry types; argument dist_fun is deprecated as a consequence, and distance calculations are different from those in sf versions 0.5-5 or earlier; #593

• add package lwgeom to Suggests; st_area, st_length, st_distance, st_segmentize for long/lat CRS use package lwgeom instead of geosphere; #593

• st_length returns zero for polygon-type geometries; #593

• if present, add units of attribute to default plot title; #591

• add unnest method, which depends on tidyr > 0.7-2; #570 PR by @karldw

• add largest option to st_join to get largest intersection match only; #547, by @tiernanmartin

• change default maximum number of feature to print to 10, controllable by options(sf_max_print); #556

• add Hausdorff (and Frechet for those with GEOS 3.7.0) as options to st_distance; add par for densified versions

• add st_snap, for snapping geometries to other geometries, within a tolerance

• make st_wrap_dateline a generic, with methods for sf, sfc and sfg; #541

• plot.sf and st_as_grob (used by ggplot2) are robust against misspecified ring directions (holes that have the same direction as the exterior rings), by using rule = "evenodd"; #540

• functions depending on liblwgeom (st_make_valid, st_geohash, st_plit) have been moved to their own package, https://github.com/r-spatial/lwgeom; argument use_gdal of st_transform has been deprecated, instead one can use lwgeom::st_transform_proj; sf no longer tries to link to liblwgeom; #509, #537, #487

• st_read, st_sf and st_sfc gain a parameter check_ring_dir (default: FALSE) that checks ring directions and corrects to: exterior counter clockwise, holes clockwise, when seen from above.

• get rid of classInt::classIntervals warning if number of unique values is smaller than the number of breaks asked for

Changes in version 0.5-5

• have classInt in Imports:, to not break other package checks

• add vignettes 5: plotting sf objects and 6: miscellaneous; #324

• add (default) color key to plot.sf if single map is plotted, contributed by @hughjonesd; #528

• st_as_sfc can read EWKT; #530

• argument max.plot takes its default from options(sf_max.plot=n), if present; #516

• plot.sf gets an arguments pal to specify a color palette function; #526

• plot.sf gets arguments breaks and nbreaks; add support for classInt::classIntervals styles for finding class intervals (using breaks)

• add st_as_sf methods for ppp, lpp and psp objects from spatstat.

• allow for direct route to proj.4 ignoring GDAL (requiring liblwgeom); #509, #511

• add print method for crs objects; #517

• sf_extSoftVersion reveals whether GDAL was linked to GEOS; #510

• better check input of st_polygon; #514

• add st_node, similar to rgeos::gNode

• support for reading OFTInteger64List fields; #508

• sparse geometric binary predicate lists have a class, sgbp, and attributes region.id and predicate; #234, #524

• prevent st_split from stopping the R session; #492

• st_intersection, st_union and so on also print a message when used directly on long/lat coordinates; #496

• add rep method for sfc objects

• comparing two crs objects uses the GDAL function IsSame; #180

• add st_collection_extract, which, given an object with geometries of type GEOMETRY or GEOMETRYCOLLECTION, returns an object consisting only of elements of the specified type; by Andy Teucher, #482

• st_write exports GeoJSON with UTF-8 encoding on Windows; #444

• move package methods from Imports: to Depends: ; #478

• deal better with precision setting and propagation; #476

• fix bug in st_layers in case layers have no geometry; #334

• clarify argument envelope in st_voronoi; #474

• change aggregate to make it return the same geometry as 'by', padding attributes with NA where needed; #453

Changes in version 0.5-4

• fix compatibility problems introduced by tidyr 0.7-0 using rlang magic

• convert path names to UTF-8 in st_read, st_write and st_layers; #471

• st_sfc converts NULL values into empty geometries, and correctly identifies empty POINTs; #466, #463

• st_write abbreviates column names if driver is ESRI Shapefile; #464

• add of_largest_polygon argument to st_centroid, to get the centroid of the largest polygon; #450

• fix use of st_relate as join predicate for st_join; #454

• fix bug where st_intersects with empty second argument would crash; #458

• produce better WKT; #463

• fix bug in st_cast.sf; #461, #462

• change st_read SRS assignment logic; corrects reading projected geojson with gdal 2.2.0; #449

• st_intersection etc. on tbl also return tbl; #448

• [.sf preserves class, e.g. of tbl; #448

Changes in version 0.5-3

• support and propagate all Proj.4 +units=xx length units; #446

• allow for arith ops on empty sfc objects

• have st_graticule return an empty graticule object when argument datum is NA;

• export as_Spatial, to make it easier for packages to convert sfc objects without importing sf

• st_distance gains a parameter by_element to obtain pairwise distances; #437

• add the ability to aggregate using a simple feature by argument; #429

• make the op argument to [.sf work

• speed up st_coordinates for POINT geometries; #433

• fix performance regression for st_bbox; #418

• correct bug in st_union, st_difference and st_sym_difference introduced in 0.5-2; #431

• inform gdal about the CRS always through the proj4string, never through the epsg; see #424

• properly deal with kilometre units; #424 (fixed by Karl Dunkle Werner)

• add st_is_within_distance, only to return a sparse index matrix; #419

• have st_graticule work with world2 (0,360); #421, #422, fixed by Ben Best

• st_graticule to return graticules in native crs; https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues/2200 (WIP)

• st_graticule to support data in NA_crs_; https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues/2199

• fix bug when joining an sf-tibble with a tibble; #414

• read gdal StringList, RealList, and IntegerList fields into a list-column; #416

Changes in version 0.5-2

• made ready for rwinlib/gdal2; #408

• make [.sf for selections including NA values like x[c(1,NA,2)]; #403

• add a [<- method for sfc objects; automatically replaces NULL with an empty geometry; #411

• add st_point_on_surface() to return a point that is guaranteed to be on the surface (standard compliance)

• read_sf returns an sf-tibble, an object of class c("sf", "tbl_df", "tbl", "data.frame")

• work around for dplyr::filter not dispatching geometry column subsetting to sf::[.sfc

• allow units object as dist argument to st_buffer; these must be convertable to arc_degree for geographic, and to a length unit for non-geographic data; #399

• prevent gdal from crashing when trying to st_transform an empty geometry; #398

• add st_as_sfc method for bbox, returning the bbox polygon; #377

• strip file name extension from default layer name in st_write; #392

• have st_sf replace NULL values in an sfc list-column with the appropriate empty geometry; #372

• allow setting ndiscr through ggplot2::coords_sf to improve graticule plotting in geom_sf; #396

Changes in version 0.5-1

• add spatial indexes to most binary geometry operations; #394 and http://r-spatial.org/r/2017/06/22/spatial-index.html

• drastically reduce memory footprint of st_intersection and similar; #394

• support RSQLite 2.0 by providing an st_as_sfc method for list columns of class blob

• drop dependency on dbplyr

Changes in version 0.5-0

• better handle empty/NULL geometries in shapefiles; #351

• add unite_.sf method

• deprecate FUN argument to st_join; #376

• improve graticule tic label placement in ggplot2; #375 and https://github.com/tidyverse/ggplot2/issues/2119

• improve configure logic to deal with libraries installed in custom locations; #335

• fix bug where geom_sf wouldn't deal with Z and/or M geoms; #373

• return more conveniently typed empty geoms; #372

• fix subsetting with [ of sf using drop = TRUE, #370

• in addition to m, allow rad units to st_segmentize

• add example how to st_read GeoJSON from a string; #185

• add separate_.sf method

• add st_split to split geometries (only available if compiled against liblwgeom), #359

• fix bug reading and writing dates (months 1 off): #358

• [.sf and [.sfc also select on i when i is an sfg object, and accept a geometric predicate function with optional arguments; #352

• on reading through GDAL, empty (NULL) geometries no longer result in an error; on creation, they no longer automatically give a GEOMETRY object; #351

• on plotting with ggplot2::geom_sf, empty geometries no longer break; grid functions return nullGrob() for them; #351

• arith operations on empty geometries no longer break or give warnings; #351

• have st_as_sf.data.frame by default break on NA values in coordinates; #342

• have st_join accept further arguments, to be passed on to the join function (e.g. a pattern for st_relate)

• have WKB reader throw an error on (some) malformed inputs, and check for buffer bounds

Changes in version 0.4-3

• back-port do_union argument to dplyr <= 0.5.0, using lazyeval

• all strings returned from OGR/GDAL get encoding set to UTF-8, making them work on non-UTF-8 platforms; #5

• $.crs retrieves proj4string components, such as st_crs(4326)$datum in addition to epsg and proj4string

• let st_geohash return geohash for (average) points (only when sf was linked to liblwgeom)

Changes in version 0.4-2

• summarise.sf always returns an sf object, also for global (non-grouped) summaries.

• summarise.sf gains an argument do_union which determines whether to union the geometries for which a summary is given, or to st_combine them (not resolving boundaries); #331

• rename argument union of aggregate.sf into do_union, for consistency with summarise; #331

• add a nest_ method for sf objects

• st_relate gets a pattern parameter, same as rgeos::gRelate; add examples to get rook and queen neighbour lists using this; #234

• support for direct reading of spatialite and sqlite geometry wkb blobs

• build proper support for cbind and rbind methods for sf, which work (as documented) when all arguments are of class sf; dplyr::bind_cols or st_sf(data.frame(sf, df)) work for binding data.frames to an sf object.

• st_segmentize() and st_line_sample() accept units arguments

• document problem reading shapefiles from USB drives on OSX; #252

• improve docs of st_is_valid and st_make_valid; #296

• coercing sf to data.frame works better; #298

• st_line_sample gains argument sample to specify the points t.b. sampled; #299 #300 thanks to @joethorley

• add compatibility to upcoming dplyr 0.6.0; #304 #42

• write GDAL fields by name, not by number, fixing a KML problem #308

• st_write gains arguments delete_layer and delete_dsn to allow overwrite capability #307 #274

• write_sf defaults to delete_layer=TRUE, silently overwriting layers if they're already present

• compatibility with GDAL 2.2beta0; #303; #309

• replace st_write_db with a version that is fast for large datasets (#285), thanks to Josh London

• take out more memory leaking examples in tests

• the aggregate method for sf objects assumes the by argument to be identical to that of stats::aggregate

• st_wrap_dateline wraps (cuts up) geometries crossing the antimeridian, such that they no longer cross it.

Changes in version 0.4-1

• restore 3.3.0 and c++11 requirement

• st_read respects time that is read as UTC

• st_write writes time always as UTC, since GDAL does not have a mechanism to define local timezones other than "unknown" or "local"

• st_length works for POINT and MULTIPOINT (returning 0); POLYGON and MULTIPOLYGON are converted to MULTILINESTRING before computing length, thus giving polygon perimeter (#268)

• st_write has update depend on driver; for databases, the default is TRUE, otherwise FALSE (it refers to update of the database, and not to overwriting the table in the database, this will by default not succeed); #274

• st_read supports reading objects with multiple geometry columns #257 #255

• support writing (exporting) objects with non-standard columns, such as units or POSIXlt #264

• catch dependencies on GEOS 3.3.5 (hence no 0.4-0 CRAN binary for MacOSX) #260

Changes in version 0.4-0

• have st_is_valid catch corrupt geometries too, returning NA in that case (requiring GEOS 3.5.0)

• add st_make_valid, only available when sf was linked to liblwgeom

• add st_coordinates method, returning coordinates matrix with indexes

• remove unlist.sfg

• add as.matrix.sfg; have as.matrix.sfg add indexes to coordinates

• add st_bind_cols method

• improve handling features that can't be projected

• support uniform sampling over polygons on the sphere

• add st_sample, for sampling points on multipoints, linestrings, or polygons

• add c method for sfc objects

• import and export magrittr::%>%

• support ggplot'ing geometrycollections

• drop C++11 requirement, allowing build for older R versions

• add st_proj_info, modelled after rgdal::projInfo

• overwriting datasets with st_write() is no longer allowed; update=TRUE appends to them, permitted the driver supports appending.

• st_write gains an argument, update, which when TRUE will try to append to existing datasets (#204)

• added list of corresponding function for migration from sp, rgdal and rgeos to sf at https://github.com/edzer/sfr/wiki/migrating

• remove deprecated st_list

• rename st_makegrid to st_make_grid, and st_linemerge to st_line_merge

• add NEWS.md file (#207)

• faster conversion of data.frame into POINT sf object, using st_as_sf (Michael Sumner)

• rbind method for sf objects keeps coordinate reference system

Changes in version 0.3-4

• add st_contains_properly spatial predicate

• GEOS functions (geometry operations) accept XYZ geometries (and ignore Z)

• make prepared = TRUE the default for all geometry binary operations

Changes in version 0.3-2

• add user interrupt checks in all GEOS geometry operations

• make st_graticule do something useful for polar projections

• make st_graticule return NA labels when labels are useless

• add merge.sf methods to merge sf object and data.frame (#193)

• add st_join for table joins based on (user-defined) spatial predicates

• add dplyr-style non-spatial joins for sf objects (left_join, full_join etc.) (#193)

• allow for multiple non-gathered variables (#196)

• add missing meridian to st_graticule (#198)

Changes in version 0.3-1

• add merge method (#193)

• st_graticule for laea (#198)

• allow st_buffer with feature-dependent buffer distance (#197)

• have spread return an sf object (#196)

• clarify overwrite = TRUE in write docs

• fix st_as_sf.map (#194)

• add prepared arg to spatial binary predicates, to speed up large intersections

• add st_voronoi interface (requires that lib GEOS >= 3.5.0)

• add st_as_sf methods for map objects (library maps)

• add RStudio project file

• have st_bbox return a bbox object which has an st_crs method

• rename st_drop_zm into st_zm, for general more handling of Z and M

• allow for 3D coordinates returned, when +proj=geocent (#172; #103)

• fix NA_integer_ handling in shapefiles I/O (#184)

• add and fix st_agr API, to set and get attribute-to-geometry relationships

Changes in version 0.2-8