Error opening SHP file in R using maptools readShapePoly

Question

I am new to R and was following the following tutorial on the ggplot2 package found here. However the readShapePoly() function throws an error whenever I try to load the bas

Answer 1

I just managed to fix this problem with a shapefile I was trying to read by typing:

file<- readShapeSpatial("filename.shp")

instead of typing in the full file path.

Before then, I tried all the suggestions, including making sure that the .dbf and .shx files were also present. Don't know why this should be the case.