R: Download File from the Internet

download.file {base}

R Documentation

Download File from the Internet

Description

This function can be used to download a file from the Internet either using a helper application such as wget or by making a direct socket connection.

Usage

download.file(url, destfile, method = "auto", quiet=FALSE)

Arguments

url

A character string with the URL of a file to be downloaded.

destfile

A character string with the name where the downloaded file is saved.

method

Tool to be used for downloading files. Currently download methods "auto", "wget", "lynx" "cp" and "socket" are available. To use "wget" or "lynx" the executable must be installed on your system and in your path. To use "socket" the file must be on an HTTP server, in plain text, and your system must allow socket connections to be opened to that server.

quiet

If TRUE, suppress status messages from the download tool (if any).

Details

The function download.file can be used to download a single file as described by url from the internet and store it in destfile. It makes a system call to the tool given by method, the respective program must be installed on your system and be in the search path for executables. If method "cp" is used, then the url must start with "file:" and give the path to a local file. Method "auto" (the default) searches for available tools at runtime. The url must start with a type specification such as "http://", "ftp://" or "file:".

Note

Cacheing proxies and firewalls may well not allow method "socket" socket to be used.

[Package base version 1.1 ]