Too hard to create a raster with a run-time data type

[lnicola]

Driver::create_with_band_type_with_options takes the type as a generic parameter, which is pretty annoying.

[jdroenner]

i guess that depends how you use it. I usually want to read data with the type of the dataset and when creating a dataset i want that to have the type of the data. In both cases it is nice to use the same generic T for rasterio and driver/band creation.
I guess we can also add another method where the type is provided as a parameter.

[metasim]

I find this super frustrating also. As a point of comparison, I have this sort of thing all over my code:

match &raster.cell_type {
    CellType::UInt8 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<u8>(), &raster.mask, self),
    CellType::UInt16 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<u16>(), &raster.mask, self),
    CellType::UInt32 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<u32>(), &raster.mask, self),
    CellType::Int16 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<i16>(), &raster.mask, self),
    CellType::Int32 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<i32>(), &raster.mask, self),
    CellType::Float32 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<f32>(), &raster.mask, self),
    CellType::Float64 => write_dataset(&raster.data.cast_as::<f64>(), &raster.mask, self),
}

As an antidote, i've been working on a side project called erased-cells to allow for compile-time-deferred celltype handling. No GDAL connector yet, but will currently have to gdal_sys directly to get everything I need. :(

[lnicola]

I just realized it's create_with_band_type_with_options and not create_with_band_type_and_options 😅.

Time for a create_with_explicit_band_type_with_options? 😄

[metasim]

ooof 🤢