New version of neonUtilities (2.3.0)

neonUtilities 2.3.0 is now available on CRAN! Updates in this new version:

Maintenance:

• byTileAOP() and footRaster() now use the terra package for spatial data handling, to remove dependency on legacy spatial data packages, which will be obsolete as of October 2023. For details on changes to R packages for working with spatial data, see the website of the r-spatial group. Similar updates to NEON tutorials and GitHub-hosted packages are in progress.

Enhancements:

• Output from data download and stacking functions now includes recommended citation(s) in BibTeX format. This applies to stackByTable(), loadByProduct(), stackEddy(), byFileAOP(), and byTileAOP(). Note that citation retrieval will generally work on data files as downloaded from the NEON data portal or using neonUtilities functions, but if you use alternative download methods and/or modify the contents of downloaded data packages, the stacking functions may not be able to identify data release information and may not provide citations.
• New function getCitation() can also be used to get the BibTeX citation for a specific data product and release.
• Conversion of dates to POSIXct format in stacking functions can now optionally use the fasttime package for faster processing. Toggle this option on and off with useFasttime=. This applies to stackByTable(), readTableNEON(), loadByProduct(), and stackEddy(). The default behavior is not to use fasttime, for backwards compatibility and because it can introduce small inconsistencies in time stamps at the millisecond level. But note that for most NEON data products, precision at the millisecond level is unlikely to be scientifically meaningful.
• In addition to the fasttime option, stackEddy() performance has been improved. Faster stacking speeds will be most noticeable when working with large amounts of data.
• stackEddy() can now retrieve site, code, and CO₂ validation data from H5 file attributes. Toggle this option on and off with metadata=. CO₂ validation data are included in outputs only if CO₂ variables are selected in the stacking options. Note that attributes in basic package data are valid for the first day of the month; to get attributes for each day of data, use metadata= with expanded package data.

Bug fixes:

• When no data are available for a particular day and sensor in the eddy covariance system, a single empty record for the day is reported in the H5 file. In past versions of neonUtilities, stackEddy() was handling this correctly only in some cases. These records are now fully removed from stackEddy() outputs.