Cannot open layer error when downloading shapefile

General
#1

I know this is a very specific question about a specific package but I can't seem to be able to deal with it on my own so I'm seeking help. I'd like to use the {leaidr} package (GitHub - ivelasq/leaidr: An R Package for U.S. School District Shapefiles) to download shapefiles for US school districts and have followed the instructions written by Isabella here (%>% dreams - An even easier-to-use R package for school district shapefiles) but I can't seem to get it to work. Specifically, when I download the shapefile for a particular state using the lea_get function as she did, I got the following output

trying URL 'https://github.com/datalorax/us-district-shapefiles/raw/master/individ-districts/47.dbf'
Content type 'application/octet-stream' length 210592 bytes (205 KB)
downloaded 205 KB

trying URL 'https://github.com/datalorax/us-district-shapefiles/raw/master/individ-districts/47.prj'
Content type 'text/plain; charset=utf-8' length 147 bytes
downloaded 147 bytes

trying URL 'https://github.com/datalorax/us-district-shapefiles/raw/master/individ-districts/47.shp'
Content type 'application/octet-stream' length 7345380 bytes (7.0 MB)
downloaded 7.0 MB

trying URL 'https://github.com/datalorax/us-district-shapefiles/raw/master/individ-districts/47.shx'
Content type 'application/octet-stream' length 1364 bytes
downloaded 1364 bytes

Error in ogrInfo(dsn = dsn, layer = layer, encoding = encoding, use_iconv = use_iconv,  : 
  Cannot open layer
In addition: Warning messages:
1: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others 
2: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others

Essentially there is a "cannot open layer error" toward the end that I can't deal with. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

#2

Works for me:

library(leaidr)
tn <- lea_get("tn")
#  Warning: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others
#  Warning: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others
#  Warning: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others
#  Warning: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others
#  Warning: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others
#  Warning: OGR support is provided by the sf and terra packages among others
#  OGR data source with driver: ESRI Shapefile 
#  Source: "/tmp/RtmpAxM7Cb/47", layer: "47"
#  with 158 features
#  It has 18 fields

str(tn)
#  Formal class 'SpatialPolygonsDataFrame' [package "sp"] with 5 slots
#    ..@ data       :'data.frame':  158 obs. of  18 variables:
#    .. ..$ STATEFP   : chr [1:158] "47" "47" "47" "47" ...
#    .. ..$ ELSDLEA   : chr [1:158] NA NA NA NA ...
[...]
#    ..@ proj4string:Formal class 'CRS' [package "sp"] with 1 slot
#    .. .. ..@ projargs: chr "+proj=longlat +ellps=GRS80 +no_defs"
#    .. .. ..$ comment: chr "GEOGCRS[\"GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)\",\n    DATUM[\"D_unknown\",\n        ELLIPSOID[\"GRS80\",6378137,298.257222101,"| __truncated__
#    ..$ comment: chr "TRUE"

Created on 2023-05-15 with reprex v2.0.2

Try to get the files again. If doesn't work, download them directly from github (GitHub - datalorax/us-district-shapefiles: Individual district shapefiles from leaidir package) -- either clone them or download zip archive, unpack and read using sf::read_sf() function like:

sf::read_sf("/tmp/RtmpPBW4E8/47/47.shp")
#  Simple feature collection with 158 features and 18 fields
#  Geometry type: MULTIPOLYGON
#  Dimension:     XY
#  Bounding box:  xmin: -90.3103 ymin: 34.98292 xmax: -81.6469 ymax: 36.67826
#  Geodetic CRS:  GRS 1980(IUGG, 1980)
#  # A tibble: 158 × 19
#     STATEFP ELSDLEA SCSDLEA UNSDLEA GEOID NAME  LSAD  LOGRADE HIGRADE MTFCC SDTYP
#     <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr>   <chr> <chr> <chr> <chr>   <chr>   <chr> <chr>
#   1 47      <NA>    47073   <NA>    4747… Hawk… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   2 47      <NA>    47123   <NA>    4747… Monr… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   3 47      <NA>    47002   <NA>    4747… Arli… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   4 47      <NA>    47187   <NA>    4747… Will… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   5 47      <NA>    47189   <NA>    4747… Wils… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   6 47      <NA>    47031   <NA>    4747… Coff… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   7 47      <NA>    47029   <NA>    4747… Cock… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   8 47      <NA>    47077   <NA>    4747… Hend… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#   9 47      <NA>    47143   <NA>    4747… Rhea… 00    09      12      G5410 A    
#  10 47      <NA>    47149   <NA>    4747… Ruth… 00    07      12      G5410 A    
#  # ℹ 148 more rows
#  # ℹ 8 more variables: FUNCSTAT <chr>, ALAND <dbl>, AWATER <dbl>,
#  #   INTPTLAT <chr>, INTPTLON <chr>, GEO_YEAR <chr>, SCHOOLYEAR <chr>,
#  #   geometry <MULTIPOLYGON [°]>

Please note /tmp/Rxxx/47.shp is just a temporary path in my environment, yours would be different.

Regards,
Grzegorz

#3

Thanks so much

So this works great, and I was able to get the data and do things to them. I do still want to be able to learn how to do things automatically remotely without downloading the shapefiles first though. Do you know what might have happened when I tried the original approach? In the instructions written by the author of the package, she said one must have a GITHUB_PAT before you can run lea_get, which I do. Essentially what I did is the following:

  • I created a PAT
  • I used the {gitcreds} package to set my PAT in my environment
  • Then I ran lea_get but still got the same "cannot open layer" error message as before.

Any thoughts?