Downloading files

Intermediate Importing Data in R

Filip Schouwenaars

Instructor, DataCamp

Example: Excel

library(readxl)

read_excel("http://assets.datacamp.com/course/
                 importing_data_into_r/cities.xlsx")

Error:
'http://assets.datacamp.com/course/importing_data_into_r/cities.xlsx' 
does not exist in current working directory.

download.file()

url <- "http://assets.datacamp.com/
            course/importing_data_into_r/cities.xlsx"

dest_path <- file.path("~", "local_cities.xlsx")

download.file(url, dest_path)

// Messages showing download progress omitted

read_excel(dest_path)

    Capital Population
1  New York   16044000
2    Berlin    3433695
3    Madrid    3010492
4 Stockholm    1683713

Why download.file()?

Reproducibility
HTTP from inside R
- Authentication
- Additional parameters
- httr - Hadley Wickham

Let's practice!

Intermediate Importing Data in R