resolve_feature_type {cartographer}

Guess the feature type if it was missing

Description

If feature_type is provided, this simply checks that the type has been registered. If it is NA, however, an attempt it made to guess the appropriate choice. This is done by comparing the example values provided as feature_names with the names of all registered map datasets. If there is an unambiguous match, that will be filled in.

Usage

resolve_feature_type(feature_type, feature_names)

Arguments

feature_type

Type of map feature. See feature_types() for a list of registered types. If NA, the type is guessed based on the values in feature_names.

feature_names

Character vector of feature names in the data. This can be a subset of the values.

Details

Cartographer lazy loads map data for registered maps. In order to compare the example feature_names with registered maps, it might be necessary to force some of these datasets to load. To minimise the impact, any maps that have already been loaded are checked first. Other maps are then loaded one at a time until any matches are found. Consequently, the result returned by this function is not deterministic.

In the worst case where none of the registered maps matches, all of them will be loaded. This might take several seconds and occupy some memory, depending on which maps are registered. If a match is found, however, it will be found quickly on subsequent calls since the data will have already been loaded.

The best way to avoid these issues is to explicitly specify the feature_type.

Value

The resolved feature type as a scalar character.

Examples

resolve_feature_type("sf.nc")
resolve_feature_type(NA, feature_names = c("ANSON", "Stanly"))