[BioC] Problem about using functions in RCurl to download a zipped file

LiGang luzifer.li at gmail.com
Thu Nov 13 01:58:22 CET 2008


Sean Davis <sdavis2 at ...> writes:

> 
> On Wed, Nov 12, 2008 at 12:28 AM, LiGang <luzifer.li at ...> wrote:
> 
> > Dear list,
> >
> > How to use functions in RCurl to download a zipped file such as the one
> > listed in the following URL:
> >
> >
> > 
http://bioconductor.org/packages/2.3/bioc/bin/windows/contrib/2.8/ABarray_1.10.
0.zip
> >
> > Following code does not work:
> >
> > getURL("
> >
> > 
http://bioconductor.org/packages/2.3/bioc/bin/windows/contrib/2.8/ABarray_1.10.
0.zip
> > ")
> >
> >
> > nor :
> >
> > getURL("
> >
> > 
http://bioconductor.org/packages/2.3/bioc/bin/windows/contrib/2.8/ABarray_1.10.
0.zip
> > ",file="target.zip")
> >
> >
> > P.S.
> >
> > How should the 'file' option in getURL function be specified?
> >
> 
> You'll probably want to read the help for getURL.  It does not have a "file"
> argument.  It is for reading URLs directly.  In this case (judging from what
> you want to do), I would suggest using download.file() instead.
> 
> If you really need to use RCurl, then you might need to look at the "write"
> argument, which would probably allow you to write things to disk as they
> come in.  But, you will need to write the handler to have it do
> this--specifying a file name will not work, if that isn't obvious from the
> help.  You would have to be careful with this, though, as .zip files are
> binary.
> 
> Sean
> 
> 	[[alternative HTML version deleted]]
> 
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> 

Dear Sean,

Thanks for your suggestions.

"file" is one of 113 CURLOptions

==============
library(RCurl)
"file" %in% listCurlOptions()
==============

The following system command does work.

curl 
http://bioconductor.org/packages/2.3/bioc/bin/windows/contrib/2.8/ABarray_1.10.
0.zip -O


I wonder how CurlOptions such as "file" or/and "write" could be set in RCurl 
package to fulfill the above curl functionality.

Any suggestions?

---
LiGang



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