As an implementation of GDAL’s Raster and Vector Data Models, gdalraster is not intended as a direct alternative to existing R packages such as sf and terra that primarily implement higher-level analytical data models. gdalraster is primarily focused on API-level bindings, attempting to expose most of the underlying C++ library in R. More direct access to GDAL’s I/O capabilities may benefit workflows that deal with source data provided on a continuum ranging from local storage and in-memory formats to database servers and cloud systems, often involving various compression formats, SQL dialects, etc. Modularized, low-level access to GDAL/OGR functionality should be of interest to R developers creating higher-level interfaces, where the analytical data models may not have been designed with their use cases in mind. API bindings facilitate code translation and reuse which can benefit hybrid environments where GDAL is used from multiple languages. Long-term stability of bindings at the library level is desirable in production scenarios, and is a major goal for the package. It is intended that gdalraster should complement and interoperate within R’s extensive and evolving spatial ecosystem.

API bindings are implemented in the exposed C++ classes GDALRaster and GDALVector, along with several stand-alone functions. Initial bindings are provided to the gdal command line interface (CLI) algorithms added in GDAL 3.11. Bindings to the GDAL Virtual Systems Interface (VSI) are also included to support file system operations on URLs, cloud storage services, Zip/GZip/7z/RAR, and in-memory files, as well as regular file systems. Calling signatures resemble the native C, C++ and Python APIs provided by the GDAL project.