Try various methods to download a file

Try all possible methods in download.file() (e.g., libcurl, curl, wget, and wininet) and see if any method can succeed. The reason to enumerate all methods is that sometimes the default method does not work, e.g., https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-devel/2016-June/072852.html.

Usage

download_file(
  url,
  output = url_filename(url),
  ...,
  .error = "No download method works (auto/wininet/wget/curl/lynx)"
)

Arguments

url

The URL of the file.

output

Path to the output file. By default, it is determined by url_filename().

...

Other arguments to be passed to download.file() (except method).

.error

An error message to signal when the download fails.

Value

The output file path if the download succeeded, or an error if none of the download methods worked.

Note

To allow downloading large files, the timeout option in options() will be temporarily set to one hour (3600 seconds) inside this function when this option has the default value of 60 seconds. If you want a different timeout value, you may set it via options(timeout = N), where N is the number of seconds (not 60).